UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF  CAPT.  AND  MRS. 
PAUL  MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


6  r 

> ',  i 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFOBMA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND. 


THE 


PHYSIOLOGY    OF    MIND. 


BEING  THE  FIRST  PART  OF  A  THIRD  EDITION', 

REVISED,  ENLARGED,  AND  IN  GREAT  PART  REWRITTEN^ 

OF  "  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  AND  PATHOLOGY  OF  MIND." 


BY 


HENRY    MAUDSLEY,    M.D. 


NEW    YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

1,  8.  AND  6  BOND  STREET. 
1887. 


1381(5;) 


UV»«*nrY 

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PREFACE. 

THE  first  edition  of  my  work  on  the  Physiology 
and  PatJiology  of  Mind  was  published  in  the  year 
1867.  A  second  edition  appeared  in  the  following 
year,  which  was  in  due  time  exhausted,  and  the 

book  has  been  out  of  print  for  some  years.     The 
T3 

delay  in  the  publication  of  a  third  edition  has  been 

owing  mainly  to  the  occupations  of  active  profes- 
sional life,  which  have  hindered  the  bestowal  of  the 
systematic  work  of  revision  and  enlargement  made 
necessary  by  the  progress  of  physiological  and 
psychological  knowledge  ;  but  partly  also  to  a 
lack  of  enthusiasm  in  the  labour,  arising  from  a 
conviction  that  what  was  of  value  in  the  book  had 

r-\ 

either  been  said  already,  or  would  anyhow  very 
soon  be  said,  by  some  one  else.  The  current  of 
psychological  thought  having  set  so  strongly  in 
physiological  channels,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  the 
reflections  which  one  person  has  had,  however 
original  they  may  seem  to  him,  some  other  person 
has  had,  has  now,  or  will  very  soon  have.  One  is 
happily,  too,  more  critical,  as  well  as  less  enthusiastic 


vi  PltEFACE. 

and  confident,  at  forty  than  at  thirty  years  of  age ; 
and  a  result  of  the  more  sober  mood  is  that  what 
seemed  very  important,  and  much  needing  to  be 
said,  at  the  earlier  date,  does  not  seem  of  so  much 
consequence,  or  anywise  to  press  for  delivery,  at 
the  later  date. 

There  was  another  inhibitory  reflection,  occa- 
sioned by  a  contemplation  of  the  revolution  in 
psychological  method,  which  has  been  going  on 
for  some  time  now,  and  of  the  entirely  different 
aspects  which  many  psychological  questions  have 
assumed  in  consequence.  The  changes  that  have 
taken  place  have  been  so  great  and  so  rapid  that 
a  book  written  ten  years  ago  must  necessarily, 
unless  re -written,  be  much  out  of  date  now. 

In  the  preface  to  the  first  edition,  the  aim  of  the 
work  was  declared  to  be  twofold  :  "  first,  to  treat 
of  mental  phenomena  from  a  physiological  rather 
than  from  a  metaphysical  point  of  view ;  and, 
secondly,  to  bring  the  manifold  instructive  in- 
stances presented  by  the  unsound  mind  to  bear 
upon  the  interpretation  of  the  obscure  problems 
of  mental  science — to  do  what  I  could  to  put  a 
happy  end  to  the  'inauspicious  divorce'  between 
the  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  Mind!"  The 
way  in  which  the  fulfilment  of  the  first  part  of 
this  twofold  aim  was  prosecuted  did  not  fail  to 
provoke  much  criticism,  of  the  direct  and  indirect 
sort,  from  those  who  assumed  that  it  was  a  reck- 


PREFACE.  vfi 

less  attempt  to  discard  entirely  the  psychological 
method  of  inquiry  into  mental  phenomena,  and  to 
employ  the  physiological  method  exclusively.  No 
doubt  the  energetic  exposition  of  the  shortcomings 
of  the  psychological  method  and  the  earnest  ad- 
vocacy of  the  physiological  method  lent  some 
countenance  to  that  supposition,  but  it  was  none 
the  less  directly  contrary  to  the  distinct  enunciation 
of  that  which  was  advocated  in  the  first  chapter 
as  the  proper  method  of  the  study  of  mind,  and 
with  the  method  actually  pursued  in  the  execution 
of  the  work  throughout.  It  was  not  possible  to 
set  forth  adequately  the  fruitfulness  and  the  rich 
promise  of  the  physiological  method,  and  to  elevate 
it  to  its  rightful  position,  without  exposing  the 
shortcomings  of  the  psychological  method,  and 
degrading  it  to  a  lower  rank  than  that  which  it 
had  usurped. 

The  physiological  method  has  made  such  great 
way  that  it  stands  not  now  in  need  either  of  de- 
fence or  advocacy ;  and  the  result  cannot  fail  to 
be,  as  regards  this  book,  that  the  exposition  of  its 
merits,  made  with  all  the  vehemence  of  youthful 
enthusiasm,  must  look  like  a  superfluous  assertion 
of  claims  which  are  not  seriously  contested,  while 
the  record  of  acquisitions  which  have  become  part 
of  the  general  body  of  thought  certainly  requires 
not  the  aggressive  prominence  which  it  had. 

To  adapt  this  edition  in  some  measure  to  these 


fiii  PREFACE. 

new  conditions,  I  have,  while  incorporating  the 
entire  substance  of  previous  editions,  omitted  or 
modified  various  expressions  and  passages  which 
seemed  objectionable  as  they  stood,  and  have 
sought  to  maintain  the  level  of  a  more  sober  style  ; 
and,  in  order  to  bring  it  even  with  the  present 
state  of  knowledge,  the  original  matter  has  been 
carefully  revised  and  largely  added  to.  The  con- 
sequence has  been  that  what  was  the  First  Part 
of  former  editions,  treating  of  the  Physiology  of 
Mind,  and  had  been  written  in  the  first  instance 
in  order  to  lay  a  foundation  for  the  Second  Part, 
which  dealt  with  the  Pathology  of  Mind,  has 
grown  so  much,  and  attained  by  its  growth  such 
an  independent  character,  as  to  render  it  advisable 
to  make  it  a  separate  volume. 

This  volume  is,  then,  presented  as  a  treatise  on 
the  physiology  of  mind,  and  may  stand  on  its  own 
account  as  such,  quite  apart  from  the  second 
volume  which,  following  in  due  season,  will  be 
occupied  entirely  with  the  pathology  of  mind,  and 
with  the  accomplishment  of  the  second  part  of  the 
twofold  aim.  Or,  if  it  be  thought  too  ambitious  a 
thing  to  call  it  a  treatise,  let  it  be  looked  upon  as 
a  disquisition,  by  the  light  of  existing  knowledge, 
concerning  the  nervous  structures  and  functions 
which  are  the  probable  physical  foundations,  or 
the  objective  aspects,  of  those  natural  phenomena 
which  appear  in  consciousness  as  feelings  and 


IREFACE.  ix 

thoughts,  and  are  known  only  in  that  way — that 
is  to  say,  subjectively.  Should  any  one  choose 
to  declare  that  the  book  is  neither  Physiology 
nor  Psychology,  but  an  ill-conceived  medley,  and 
be  offended  at  what  is  offered  to  him,  I  am  not 
careful  to  answer  in  that  matter ;  I  am  more 
wishful,  in  my  unwisdom,  that  it  should  be  in 
conformity  with  nature  than  with  the  divisions  of 
sciences  which  he  and  those  who  think  with  him 
labour  to  impose  upon  nature  by  way  of  amend- 
ment upon  its  continuity  and  unity.  It  may  not 
be  amiss  perhaps  to  caution  the  reader  that  he 
allow  not  the  book  to  obtain  by  implication, 
either  from  physiology  or  from  psychology,  more 
authority  than  it  is  fairly  entitled  to  ;  I  desire 
only  that  it  may  stand  on  its  own  bottom  as  an 
exposition  of  the  aspects,  be  they  right  or  wrong, 
in  which  the  author's  study  and  reflection  have  led 
him  to  view  the  matters  which  are  discussed  in 
its  pages. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ON  THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND. 

Aspects  of  nature  terrible  to  man  in  the  infancy  of  thought ;  whence 
superstitious  feelings  and  fancies  regarding  nature.  As  these 
disappear  metaphysical  entities  are  assigned  as  natural  causes, 
and  man  deems  himself  the  "  measure  of  the  universe."  Finally, 
the  interrogation  and  interpretation  of  nature,  after  the  inductive 
method,  begin ;  fruitful  results  of  this  method.  Its  adoption 
was  the  extension  to  the  intellect  of  the  law  of  internal  adaptation 
to  external  relations.  Any  proposition  concerning  the  uncon- 
ditioned or  absolute  is  nonsense.  Is  the  inductive  method, 
objectively  applied,  available  for  the  study  of  Mind  ?  Difficulties 
in  the  way  of  such  application.  Development  of  biography,  and 
absence  of  any  progress  in  metaphysics,  are  evidences  of  its 
value.  Discussion  of  the  claim  of  Psychology  to  be  inductive. 
Its  method  of  interrogating  self-consciousness  palpably  inade- 
quate ;  contradictory  results  of  its  use,  and  impossibility  of 
applying  it  inductively.  Observation  of  animals,  of  children,  of 
the  lower  races  of  men,  and  of  insane  persons  has  been  entirely 
neglected.  Self-consciousness  unreliable  in  the  information 
which  it  does  give,  and  incompetent  to  give  any  account  of  a 
large  part  of  mental  activity  :  gives  no  account  of  the  mental 
phenomena  of  the  infant,  of  the  uncultivated  adult,  and  of  the 
insane  ;  no  account  of  the  bodily  conditions  which  underlie  every 
mental  manifestation  ;  no  account  of  the  large  field  of  unconscious 
mental  action  exhibited,  not  only  in  the  unconscious  assimilation 


xii  CONTENTS. 


of  impressions,  but  in  the  registration  of  ideas  and  their  associa- 
tions, in  their  latent  existence  and  influence  when  not  active,  and 
in  their  recall  into  activity  ;  and  no  account  of  the  influence 
organically  exerted  upon  the  brain  by  other  organs  of  the  body. 
Mind  a  consensus  of  affective,  intellectual,  and  active  functions,  • 
and  the  basis  of  the  affective  functions  is  in  the  organic  life  :  mind 
a  direct  function  of  brain,  but  every  organic  function  represented 
in  the  brain.  Defects  of  psychological  nomenclature.  Incom- 
petency  of  self-consciousness  further  displayed  by  examination 
of  its  real  nature ;  its  method  to  be  dethroned,  not  discarded. 
Physiology  cannot  any  longer  be  ignored  ;  henceforth  necessary 
to  associate  the  Physiological  with  the  Psychological  method  ; 
the  former  being  really  the  more  important  and  fruitful  method. 
The  study  of  the  plan  of  development  of  Mind,  the  study  of  it 
forms  of  degeneration  in  the  insane  and  in  criminals,  the  study 
of  its  progress  and  regress,  as  exhibited  in  history,  and  the  study 
of  biography,  should  not  be  neglected.  The  union  of  empirical 
and  rational  faculties,  really  advocated  by  Bacon  as  his  method, 
is  strictly  applicable  to  the  investigation  of  mental  as  of  other 
natural  phenomena.  Development  of  mind  in  nature  a  process 
of  organic  evolution  :  unity  and  continuity  in  nature.  The 
question  of  relative  value  of  inductive  or  deductive  reasoning 
often  a  question  of  the  capacity  of  him  who  uses  it ;  difference 
between  genius  and  mediocrity.  Conclusion — Notes. 

Page  1—76 


CHAPTER   II. 

MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM. 

The  term  "  Mind  "  used  in  different  senses  :  in  its  scientific  sense,  as 
a  natural  force  ;  and  in  its  popular  sense,  as  an  abstraction  made 
into  a  metaphysical  entity.  The  brain  certainly  the  organ  of 
the  M  ind?  and  the  nervous  cells  the  immediate  agents  of  mental 
function.  A  correlative  change  in  nerve  element  accompanies 
each  mental  state  ;  chemical  composition  of  nerve  element  being 
extremely  complex  and  unstable.  Mental  power  an  organized 
result  in  the  proper  centres — a  mental  organization.  No  nerve 
in  lowest  animal  forms  ;  perception  of  stimulus  being  the  direct 
physical  effect  in  a  homogeneous  substance.  The  differentiation 


CONTENTS.  xiii 


of  tissues  in  higher  animals  demands  special  means  of  intercom- 
munication :  the  nervous  system,  at  first  very  simple,  subserving 
this  function.  With  increasing  complexity  of  organization,  a 
corresponding  complexity  of  the  nervous  system.  Organs  of 
special  senses  appear,  in  very  rudimentary  form  at  first,  by  differ- 
entiation of  the  general  sense  of  touch  ;  corresponding  central 
nervous  ganglia  constitute  entire  brain  in  Invertebrata.  Sensori- 
motor  function.  Discriminations  of  organic  susceptibility  or 
sensibility.  Relation  of  consciousness  to  sensibility.  Rudiments 
of  cerebral  hemispheres  and  rudimentary  ideation  and  emotion  in 
fishes.  Convolution  of  the  grey  matter  of  the  hemispheres  in  the 
higher  mammals,  and  corresponding  increase  of  intelligence  in 
them.  Differences  in  the  sjze  of  the  brain,  and  in  the  complexity 
of  its  convolutions,  in  different  races  of  men,  and  in  different  in- 
dividuals of  the  same  race  ;  corresponding  differences  in  intel- 
lectual development.  Human  embryonic  development  conforms 
with  general  plan  of  development  of  Vertebrata.  Discrimina- 
tion of  nervous  centres :  (a)  primary,  or  Ideational ;  (b)  secondary, 
or  Sensorial ;  (c )  tertiary,  or  Reflex  ;  (d)  quaternary,  or  Organic. 
The  evidence  of  the  different  functions  of  these  centres  is  ana- 
tomical, physiological,  experimental,  and  pathological.  Lock- 
hart  Clarke  on  the  structure  of  the  convolutions  in  man. 
Discriminating  observation  of  mental  phenomena  necessary,  and 
metaphysical  conception  of  Mind  no  longer  tenable.  Definitions 
of  mind.  Mind  never  met  with  apart  from  brain.  Differences 
of  matter  in  dignity  and  corresponding  modes  of  force.  Mind 
the  most  dependent  of  all  the  natural  forces  ;  relations  of  mental 
force  in  nature.  Concluding  remarks. — Notes.  Page  77 — 135 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   SPINAL   CORD   AND   REFLEX   ACTION. 

Spinal  cord  not  a  conducting  organ  only,  but  contains  nervous 
centres  of  reflex  or  automatic  movements.  Earliest  movements 
of  infant  are  reflex.  Illustrations  of  reflex  movements  in  the 
decapitated  frog.  Pfliiger's  experiments  on  the  frog,  and  dis- 
cussion of  the  theory  that  the  spinal  cord  has  sensorial  functions. 
So-called  design  of  an  act  not  necessarily  evidence  of  will  or 


CONTENTS. 


consciousness.  Examples  of  inhibitory  function.  The  nature  of 
the  idea  of  design.  Spinal  cord  is  educated,  and  becomes  the 
centre  of  many  acquired  or  secondary  automatic  movements ; 
illustrations.  The  motor  faculties  mostly  acquired  in  man 
by  education  and  exercise,  but  innate  in  many  animals. 
Hearing  of  instances  of  acquired  adaptation  of  means  to  end  on 
the  doctrine  of  final  causes.  Motor  faculties  are  exhausted  by 
exercise,  and  require  periodical  rest  for  restoration  of  power  by 
nutrition.  Quantitative  and  qualitative  relation  of  reaction  to  the 
impression.  Innate  potentiality  of  nerve-element,  and  ac- 
quired potentiality.  Hereditary  transmission  of  acquired 
faculties  implants  the  germ  of  innate  endowment.  Continuous 
function  of  spinal  cord  :  it  acts  (a)  on  muscles  ;  (b)  on  vessels  : 
(f)  on  elements  of  a  tissue  ;  (d)  on  other  nerve-centres.  Pfluger's 
laws  of  reflex  movements.  Causes  of  disorder  of  function  of 
spinal  cord  :  (a)  original  differences  of  constitution  ;  (t>)  excessive 
action  ;  (c)  quantity  and  quality  of  the  blood  ;  (d)  eccentric 
irritation ;  (<?)  interruption  of  its  connection  with  the  brain. 
Close  sympathy  between  different  parts  of  the  nervous  system. 
Clear  conceptions  of  the  functions  of  spinal  centres  indispensable 
to  the  study  of  the  functions  of  the  higher  nervous  centres. — 
Notes Page  136—185 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  SENSORY  CENTRES   AND  SENSATION. 

Collections  of  grey  matter  constituting  the  sensory  ganglia  intervene 
between  the  spinal  centres  and  the  supreme  hemispherical  ganglia. 
Sensorium  commune.  Anatomical  relations  of  different  grey 
nuclei  yet  uncertain,  but  nerve-fibres  certainly  connected  with 
their  cells.  Sensory  ganglia  with  connected  motor  nuclei  the 
centres  of  independent  reaction — of  sensori-motor  movements  : 
examples.  Such  movements  are  primary  and  secondary  auto- 
matic :  examples.  Instinctive  acts  of  animals  are  sensori-motor. 
Relation  of  consciousness  to  sensori-motor  action  :  examples  to 
illustrate  this  relation,  and  discussion  of  them.  Greater  acute- 
ness  of  sense  in  animals  than  in  man,  and  consequent  reactions 


CONTENTS.  xv 


to  impressions  of  which  he  is  not  sensible.  Development  of 
sense  in  man  by  special  cultivation.  The  origin  and  nature  of 
instincts.  The  law  of  heredity,  and  the  law  of  variation.  Trans- 
formation of  rational  into  instinctive  acts.  Relation  of  sensation 
to  perception.  The  dawn  of  perception.  The  ideas  of  object 
and  subject  ;  the  conception  of  the  ego.  Development  of  per- 
ception by  synthesis  of  sensations.  Sensations  act  as  symbols  in 
sensori-motor  action.  Composite  nature  of  mature  sensation. 
The  idea  of  organization  necessary  to  the  just  interpretation  of 
sensation  ;  assimilation  and  differentiation.  No  positive  evidence 
of  intelligence  and  volition  in  the  sensory  ganglia  :  uncertain 
whether  they  possess  consciousness  or  not.  The  division  made 
between  psychology  and  physiology  is  artificial.  Consciousness 
a  concomitant  of  mental  function,  not  the  essential  factor  in  it. 
Subordination  of  the  sensory  centres  to  the  cerebral  ganglia. 
Causes  of  disorder  of  the  sensory  ganglia  :  (a)  original  d€fects  ; 
(6)  excessive  stimulation  ;  (c)  quantity  and  quality  of  blood  ;  (d) 
reflex  irritation  ;  (<?)  influence  of  cerebral  hemispheres  (?).  Con- 
cluding remarks  on  the  analogy  between  the  functions  of  the 
sensory  centres  and  of  the  spinal  centres. — Notes. 

Page  186-258 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  SUPREME  CEREBRAL  CENTRES  AND  IDEATION. 

Cf.  rtical  centres  of  the  hemispheres  the  centres  of  Ideation.  Emotion 
and  volition.  Speculations  concerning  the  functions  of  different 
convolutions.  Pathological  observations  and  inferences.  Experi- 
ments on  animals,  and  the  results.  Anterior  convolutions  are 
connected  with  motor,  posterior  with  sensory,  tracts.  Path  of  a 
psychical  reflex  act.  The  cerebral  correlate  of  idea.  Formation 
of  concrete  and  abstract  ideas.  Animals  have  not  abstract 
ideas,  and  the  lowest  savages  have  few  or  none.  The  so-called 
fundamental  or  innate  ideas.  The  probable  mechanism  of  ideation, 
and  of  the  formation  of  concepts  from  precepts.  Reflex  cerebral 
function — how  far  an  explanation.  Different  modes  of  operation 
of  idea  :  (a)  on  movements,  voluntary  and  involuntary,  conscious 
and  unconscious ;  (l>)  on  the  sensory  ganglia, — physiologically, 


CONTENTS. 


as  a  regular  part  of  mental  function  ;  pathologically,  in  the  pro- 
duction of  hallucinations  ;  (c)  on  the  functions  of  nutrition  and 
secretion  :  illustrations  ;  (it)  on  other  ideas  :  reflection  or  delibera- 
tion. Relation  of  consciousness  to  Ideational  activity.  Com- 
parison of  ideas  with  movements  in  regard  to  their  association, 
their  relation  to  consciousness,  the  time  required  for  their  per- 
formance, and  the  limited  power  which  the  mind*  has  over  them. 
The  nature  and  influence  of  attention  :  voluntary  and  involuntary 
attention.  Motor  innervation  an  essential  factor  in  attention. 
The  physical  conditions  of  an  act  of  attention.  Localization  of 
consciousness  in  the  brain.  The  character  of  the  particular 
association  of  Ideas  determined  by  (a)  the  individual  nature, 
(b)  special  life-experience.  General  laws  of  association  of  ideas. 
Fundamental  or  innate  ideas.  The  uniformity  of  nature. 
Acquisition  of  ideas  through  the  accumulated  experiences  of  the 
race  and  of  the  individual.  The  individual's  particular  associa- 
tion of  ideas — need  of  an  individual  psychology.  Concluding 
remarks  on  the  illustration  of  the  law  of  progress  from  the 
general  to  the  special  in  development,  afforded  by  the  develop- 
ment of  ideas.  —Notes. Fa$e  259—347 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ON   EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF   MIXD. 

Relation  of  emotion  to  idea.  Emotions  are  based  in  the  organic 
life.  Influence  of  state  of  nerve-element  upon  emotion.  Idea 
favourable  to  self-expansion  is  agreeable  ;  an  idea  opposed  to 
self-expansion  is  disagreeable  or  painful.  Appetite  or  desire  for 
agreeable  stimulus,  and  repulsion  to  or  avoidance  of  painful 
stimulus,  as  nwtives  of  action.  Desire  is  self-conscious  appetite. 
The  operation  of  the  sexual  appetite.  Equilibrium  between 
individual  and  his  surroundings  not  accompanied  with  desire. 
Desires  furnish  the  impulses  to  action  ;  the  function  of  the  intel- 
lect is  regulative.  Character  of  the  emotion  determined  by  the 
nature  of  external  stimulus,  and  by  the  condition  of  the  nerve- 
element,  original  and  acquired.  Original  nature  as  determined 
by  (a)  the  race ;  (6)  the  culture  of  the  epoch ;  (c)  ancestral 
qualities ;  (if)  bodily  temperament.  The  coencesthesis.  The 
mental  or  psychical  tone.  The  complex  nature  of  emotional 


CONTENTS.  xvii 


aptitudes,  and  their  resolution  or  retrograde  metamorphosis. 
Effects  of  organic  viscera  upon  the  emotions  ;  such  effects  are 
complex  and  non-intermittent,  and  cannot  be  s'udied  by  the 
subjective  method.  Influence  of  condition  of  blood  upon  the 
emotional  tone.  The  expressions  of  the  emotions  :  (a)  in 
muscular  movements  ;  (6)  in  changes  of  nutrition  and  secretion  ; 
(c)  in  ideational  activity.  Action  of  disordered  emotion. 
Emotions  and  passions.  The  evolution  in  the  mental  life  of  the 
fundamental  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  propagation.  The 
moral  feeling — its  origin  and  development.  The  moral  law  and 
the  law  of  natural  selection.  The  progress  from  the  general  and 
simple  to  the  special  and  complex,  in  the  evolution  of  the 
emotions. — Notes Page  $$ — 408 


CHAPTER  VIL 

ON   VOLITION. 

Will,  like  every  other  natural  force,  has  a  cause.  Free-will  or 
necessity  :  discussion  of  question.  The  reason  and  utility  of  the 
doctrine  of  free-will.  The  will  not  a  single,  undecomposable 
faculty  of  uniform  power,  but  varies  as  its  cause  varies  :  differs 
in  quantity  and  quality,  according  to  the  preceding  reflection. 
According  to  the  common  view  of  it,  an  abstraction  is  made 
into  a  metaphysical  entity.  The  design  in  the  particular  volition 
is  a  result  of  a  gradually  effected  mental  organization  :  a  physical 
necessity,  not  transcending  or  anticipating,  but  conforming  with, 
experience.  Erroneous  notions  as  to  the  autocratic  power  of 
will.  Its  actual  power  considered  (i)  over  movements,  and  (2) 
over  the  mental  operations.  I.  Over  movements  :  (a)  no  power 
over  the  involuntary  movements  essential  to  life  ;  (b)  no  power 
to  effect  voluntary  movements  until  they  have  been  acquired  by 
praciice  ;  (c)  cannot  control  the  means,  can  only  will  the  event. 
2.  Over  mental  operations  :  (a)  the  formation  of  ideas  and  of 
their  associations  independent  of  it ;  (b)  its  impotency  in  the 
early  stages  of  mental  development — in  the  young  child  and  in 
the  savage  ;  (c)  cannot  call  up  a  particular  train  of  thought,  or 
dismiss  a  train  of  thought,  except  through  associations  of  ideas 
which  are  beyond  its  control,  and  sometimes  not  at  all.  As  many 
centres  of  volitional  reaction  in  the  brain  as  there  are  centres  of 


CONTENTS. 


ideas.  Volition  built  up  from  residua  of  previous  volitijns  of  a 
like  kind.  Volitional  control  is  an  instance  of  inhibitory 
function  in  the  highest  nerve-centres.  To  the  freest  action  ot 
the  will  there  are  necessary  an  unimpeded  association  of  ideas 
and  a  strong  personality.  Character  not  determined  by  the  will, 
but  determining  it  in  the  particular  act.  Relation  of  emotion  to 
volition.  Character  determines  belief  as  well  as  conduct.  Modi- 
fication of  character.  The  history  of  a  man  declares  his  character. 
Differences  in  the  quality  and  energy  of  the  will.  The  character 
of  the  reformer,  and  the  conditions  of  a  successful  reform.  Ex- 
tensive and  intensive  reformers.  Will  the  highest  force  in  nature ; 
its  highest  function  creative — initiating  a  new  development  of 
nature.  —Notes. I  age  409 — 462 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ON   ACTUATION. 

Movement  follows  sensation.  Movements  leave  behind  them  residua 
in  the  motor  centres,  whence  a  repository  of  latent  or  abstract 
movements.  Motorium  commune.  Motor  residua  or  intuitions 
intervene  between  motive  and  act,  and  are  related  to  conception 
on  the  reactive  side  as  sensation  is  on  the  receptive  side.  Actua- 
tion proposed  for  the  psychological  designation  of  this  depart- 
ment. Motor  intuitions  mostly  innate  in  animals,  acquired  in 
man.  Illustrations  from  vision,  speech,  the  phenomena  of  hypno- 
tism, paralysis,  insanity,  &c.  The  effects  of  bodily  attitudes 
upon  mental  states.  The  acquisition  of  speech.  Aphasia  :  the 
pathological  conditions  of  its  phenomena,  and  their  signification 
in  relation  to  motor  intuitions.  Condilion  of  intelligence  in 
aphasia.  Thought  possible  without  verbal  language.  Motor 
hallucinations.  Co-ordinate  convulsions.  The  muscular  sense  : 
its  relation  to  the  motor  intuitions,  and  the  essential  part  which 
it  plays  in  mental  function.  Morbid  disorder  of  the  muscular 
sense.  The  will  acts  upon  muscles  indirectly  through  the  motor 
nervous  centres.  Orderly  subordination  of  nervous  centres  in 
the  expression  of  the  will  in  act  on.  Natural  differences  between 
different  persons  in  the  power  of  expression  by  speech  or  other- 
wise. The  origin,  nature,  and  development  of  language. — 
Notes. Past  463— 511 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ON    MEMORY   AND   IMAGINATION. 

Definition  and  organic  condition  of  memory.  Memory  exists  in 
every  organic  element  of  the  body — an  organic  registration  of  im- 
pressions. Conception  of  a  mental  organization  necessary  to  an 
understanding  of  its  phenomena.  Relation  of  consciousness  to 
memory.  No  memory  of  that  which  we  have  not  had  experi- 
ence of,  and  no  experience  ever  entirely  forgotten.  Physiological 
ideas  of  assimilation  and  differentiation  necessary  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  its  formation.  Memory  and  recollection.  Conscious- 
ness of  the  possession  of  what  we  do  not  actually  remember. 
Imagination  :  its  nature  and  function.  The  conditions  of  its 
highest  development.  Relation  of  memory  to  imagination. 
Fancy.  Power  of  imagination  built  up  by  the  assimilation 
not  only  of  the  like  in  ideas,  but  also  of  the  relations  of  ideas. 
The  one-making  faculty.  Its  productive  or  creative  power  is, 
in  its  highest  display,  involuntary  and  unconscious  :  it  is  the 
supreme  manifestation  of  organic  evolution.  Differences  in 
the  character  of  memory  in  different  persons.  Manifold  dis- 
orders to  which  memory  is  liable.  The  memory  of  early 
youth  and  of  old  age.  No  exact  memory  of  pain  :  why? — 
Notes Page  512 — 540 


THE 

PHYSIOLOGY    OF    MIND 

CHAPTER  I. 
ON  THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND. 

'*  Ich  sag?  es  dir  :  em  Kerl  der  speculirt, 
1st  wie  ein  Thier,  auf  diirrer  Heide 
Von  einem  bosen  Geist  im  Kreis  herum  gefiihrt, 
Und  rings  umher  licgt  schoue  griine  Weide." 

Faust. 

THE  right  estimate  of  his  relations  to  external  nature  har 
ever  been  to  man  a  matter  of  difficulty  and  uncertainty 
In  the  savage  state  of  his  infancy  he  feels  himself  sc 
little  in  the  presence  of  nature's  vastness,  so  helpless  in 
conflict  with  its  resistless  forces,  so  overawed  by  the  spec- 
tacle of  its  serenely  inexorable  course,  that  he  falls 
down  in  abject  prostration  before  its  various  powers 
The  earth  of  a  sudden  heaves  beneath  his  trembling  feet 
and  his  shattered  dwellings  bury  him  in  their  ruins ;  the 
swelling  waters  overpass  their  accustomed  boundaries 
and  indifferently  sweep  away  his  property  or  his  life ;  the 
furious  hurricane  ruthlessly  destroys  the  labours  of  years; 
and  famine  or  pestilence,  regardless  of  his  streaming 
eyes  and  piteous  prayers,  stalks  in  desolating  march 
through  a  panic-stricken  people.  In  the  deep  conscious- 
ness of  his  individual  powerlessness  he  falls  down  in  an 


2  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

agony  of  terror  and  worships  the  causes  of  his  sufferings  : 
he  deifies  the  powers  of  nature,  builds  altars  to  propitiate 
the  angry  Neptune,  and,  by  offering  sacrifices  of  that 
which  is  most  dear  to  him,  even  his  own  flesh  and  blood, 
hopes  to  mitigate  the  fury  of  Phoebus  Apollo  and  to  stay 
the  dreadful  clang  of  his  silver  bow.  When  the  army  of 
the  King  of  Assyria,  coming  np  against  Jerusalem  to  de- 
stroy it,  is  devastated  by  pestilence,  it  is  the  angel  of  the 
Lord  which  goes  out  in  the  night  and  smites  in  the  camp 
of  the  Assyrians  an  hundred  fourscore  and  five  thousand, 
so  that  they  are  all  dead  corpses  in  the  morning.  In 
like  manner,  when  any  case  of  sudden  death  occurs  now 
among  the  Bongos  of  Central  Africa;  it  is  some  old 
woman-  who  has  allied  herself  with  the  witches  to  do 
evil,  for  it  is  deemed  certain  that  a  strong  man  would 
not  die  unless  he  were  bewitched.*  Everything  appears 
supernatural  when  man  knows  nothing  of  the  natural; 
palsied  with  fear,  he  cannot  observe  and  investigate; 
himself  he  feels  to  be  insignificant  and  helpless,  while  to 
nature  he  looks  up  with  awe-struck  apprehension  as  mys- 
terious and  almighty.  Reflect  on  the  fearful  feelings 
which  any  apparent  exception  to  the  regular  course  of 
nature — the  appearance  of  a  comet,  the  occurrence  of 
an  earthquake  or  of  an  eclipse — even  now  produces  in 
many  uncultivated  minds,  on  the  superstitious  dread 
which  follows  such  unfamiliar  event,  and  it  will  not  be 
difficult  to  realize  the  extreme  mental  prostration  of 
primitive  mankind. 

Through  familiarity,  however,  consternation  after  a 
while  subsides,  and  the  spirit  of  inquiry  follows  upon 
that  of  reverence;  the  prostrate  being  rises  from  his 

*  Schweinfurth's  Heart  of  Africa,  vol.  i.  p.  310.  When  the 
North  American  chief  Picheto  was  one  night  much  alarmed  by 
the  violence  of  the  storm,  lie  got  up  and  offered  some  tobacco  to 
the  thunder,  entreating  it  to  stop. — TANNKK,  Narrative  of  a 
Captivity  am  nig  the  North  American  Indians,  p.  136. 


L]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  .MIND.          3 

knees  to  examine  into  the  causes  of  events.  Experience, 
sooner  or  later,  reveals  the  uniformity  with  which  they 
come  to  pass ;  he  discovers  more  or  less  of  the  laws  of 
their  occurrence,  and  perceives  that  he  can  by  applying 
his  knowledge  avoid  much  of  the  damage  which  he  has 
hitherto  suffered — that  he  can,  by  attending  to  theit 
laws,  even  turn  to  his  profit  those  once  dreaded  physical 
forces.  Now  it  is  that  man  begins  to  feel  that  he  has  a 
much  higher  position  in  nature  than  in  his  infancy  he 
had  imagined ;  for  a  time  he  looks  upon  himself  as  be- 
longing to  the  same  order  as  the  things  around  him  ; 
and  he  emancipates  himself  in  great  part  from  the 
dominion  of  the  priests  in  whom  he  had  hitherto  believed 
as  the  sacred  propitiators  of  the  gods  whom  his  fears  had 
fashioned.  When  his  creeds  are  seen  to  spring  from  an 
imperfection  of  intellect,  the  prayers  founded  on  them 
are  abandoned  as  marking  an  imperfection  of  will. 

Thales  of  Miletus  re  said  to  have  been  the  first  who, 
in  this  advance  amongst  the  Greeks,  laid  aside  the 
priestly  character  and  stood  forth  as  a  pure  philosopher  ; 
and  those  who  immediately  followed  him,  and  consti- 
tuted the  Ionian  school  of  philosophy,  having  an  instinc- 
tive feeling  of  the  unity  between  man  and  nature,  did 
seek  objectively  for  a  first  principle  of  things — the  ap\rj — 
common  to  him  and  the  rest  of  nature.  This  slow  and 
tedious  method  was  soon,  however,  abandoned  for  the 
easier  and  quicker  method  of  deduction  from  conscious- 
ness :  abstractions  were  made  from  the  concrete  by  the 
active  mind  ;  and  the  abstractions  being  then  projected 
out  of  the  mind  into  objective  realities,  were  looked 
upon  and  applied  as  actual  entities  in  nature.  Anaxi- 
inander,  diving  into  his  own  mind  and  finding  something 
inconceivable  there,  gave  to  it  the  name  of  the  Infinite, 
and,  transferring  it  outwards,  was  thenceforth  content  to 
pronounce  it  to  be  the  true  origin  of  all  things ;  whilst 
Pythagoras,  going  perhaps  still  further  into  the  unmeaning, 


4  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

proclaimed  numbers,  which  are  mere  arbitrary  symbols, 
to  be  actual  existences  and  the  essences  of  things. 

Thus  it  was  that  man,  forgetful  of  his  early  humility, 
rose  by  degrees  to  the  creation  of  a  god  after  his  own 
image,  and  to  the  construction  of  the  laws  of  an  external 
world  after  the  pattern  of  his  own  thoughts :  he  wor- 
shipped a  god  who  was  of  like  passions  with  himself,  sus- 
picious, jealous,  revengeful,  kindled  to  anger  by  neglect, 
appeased  by  praise  and  sacrifice,  while  such  motives  as 
he  felt  to  influence  his  own  actions  were  held  also  to  be 
the  principles  governing  the  relations  of  external  objects; 
natural  phenomena  being  explained  by  sympathies,  loves, 
discords,  hates.  As  the  child  attributes  life  to  the  dead 
objects  around  it,  speaking  to  them  and  thinking  to  re- 
ceive answers  from  them,  so  mankind,  in  the  childhood 
of  thought,  assigned  its  subjective  feelings  to  objective 
nature,  entirely  subordinating  the  physical  to  the  meta- 
physical :  it  was  but  another  form  of  that  anthropo- 
morphism by  which  the  Dryad  was  placed  in  the  tree,  the 
Naiad  in  the  fountain,  Atropos  with  her  scissors  near  the 
running  life-thread,  and  a  Sun-god  enthroned  in  the  place 
of  a  law  of  gravitation.  As  was  natural,  man,  who  thus 
imposed  his  laws  upon  nature,  soon  lost  all  his  former 
humility,  and  from  one  erroneous  extreme  passed  to  the 
opposite  :  as  once  he  fell  abjectly  down  in  an  agony  of 
fear,  so  now  he  rose  proudly  up  in  an  ecstasy  of  conceit. 

The  assertion  that  man  is  the  measure  of  the  universe 
was  the  definite  expression  of  this  metaphysical  stage  of 
human  development.  But  it  was  a  state  that  must 
plainly  be  fruitless  of  real  knowledge ;  there  could  be  no 
general  agreement  among  men  when  each  one  looked 
into  his  own  mind,  and,  arbitrarily  framing  the  principles 
of  external  nature  out  of  what  he  thought  he  found  there, 
evolved  the  laws  of  the  world  out  of  the  depths  of  his 
own  consciousness.  Disputes  must  continually  arise 
about  words  when  words  have  not  definite  meanings  j 


I.]        777;?  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.          5 

and  the  unavoidable  issue  must  be  Sophistry  and  Pyr- 
rhonism. This  has  been  so ;  the  history  of  the  human 
mind  shows  that  systems  of  scepticism  have  alternated 
regularly  with  systems  of  philosophy.  Fruitful  of 
empty  ideas  and  wild  fancies,  philosophy  has  not  been 
unlike  those  barren  women  who  would  fain  have  the 
rumbling  of  wind  to  be  the  motion  of  offspring. 

Convinced  of  the  vanity  of  its  ambitious  attempts, 
Socrates  endeavoured  to  bring  philosophy  down  from 
the  clouds,  introduced  it  into  the  cities,  and  applied 
it  to  the  conduct  of  human  life ;  while  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  opposite  as  were  their  professed  methods, 
were  both  alive  to  the  vagueness  of  the  common  dis- 
putations, and  both  laboured  hard  to  fix  definitely  the 
meanings  of  words.  But  words  cannot  attain  to  de- 
finiteness  save  as  living  outgrowths  of  realities,  as  the 
exact  expressions  of  the  phenomena  of  life  in  the  in- 
creasing speciality  of  human  adaptation  to  external  nature. 
As  it  is  with  life  objectively,  and  as  it  is  with  cognition 
or  subjective  life,  so  is  it  with  the  organic  growth  of  the 
language  in  which  the  phenomena  are  embodied  :  there 
is  a  progress  from  the  simple  to  the  complex.  When  the 
words  of  the  Aryan  languages  are  carefully  analysed  into 
their  last  radical  elements,  those  prehistoric  or  primor- 
dial elements  which  resist  further  analysis,  we  trace  a 
gradual  progress  from  simple  to  mixed  modes  of  thought, 
and  from  concrete  to  abstract  conceptions;  there  is  a 
continuous  differentiation,  first  of  nouns  into  substan- 
tives and  adjectives,  then  of  the  latter  into  adjectives 
proper  and  nouns  abstract ;  synonymes  again  disappear, 
each  getting  its  special  appropriation,  for  the  more  ancient 
a  language  the  richer  it  is  in  synonymes,  and  superfluous 
words  arc  taken  up  by  new  developments  and  combina- 
l:ons  of  thought.*  How,  then,  was  it  possible  that  a 

*  "  There  are  dialects  spoken  at  the  present  day  which  have  no 
abstract  nouns,  and  the  more  we  go  back  in  the  history  of  languages, 
2 


6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

one-sided  method,  which  entirely  ignored  the  examina- 
tion of  nature,  should  do  more  than  repeat  the  same 
things  over  and  over  again  in  words  which,  though  they 
might  be  different,  were  yet  not  less  indefinite?  The 
results  have  answered  to  the  absurdity  of  the  method ; 
for,  after  being  in  fashion  for  more  than  two  thousand 
years,  nothing  has  been  established  by  it ;  "  not  only 
what  was  asserted  once  is  asserted  still,  but  what  was  a 
question  once  is  a  question  still,  and  instead  of  being 
resolved  by  discussion  is  only  fixed  and  fed.  "  (')  * 

Perhaps  if  men  had  always  lived  in  the  sunny  climes 
of  the  south,  where  the  luxuriance  of  nature  allowed  of 
human  indolence  and  internal  contemplation,  they  might 
have  continued  vainly  to  speculate  ;  but  when  they  were 
brought  face  to  face  with  nature  in  the  rugged  north, 
and  were  driven  to  force  by  persevering  labour  the 
means  of  subsistence  from  a  sterile  soil,  then  there  arose 
the  necessity  to  observe  her  processes  and  investigate  hei 
secret  ways.  It  has  been  remarked  that  the  religions  ol 
the  world  have  originated  in  subtropical  climates  where 
nature  does  not  necessitate  a  continued  and  intense 
application  to  labour  :  Zoroaster,  Moses,  Buddha,  Christ, 
Mahomet,  having  all  belonged  to  subtropical  zones.  In 
cold  and  temperate  climes,  where  man  must  observe  and 
work,  rather  than  meditate  and  pray,  in  order  to  live, 
there  was  an  unavoidable  intending  of  the  mind  to  the 
realities  of  nature  ;  and  this  practice,  which  the  exigen- 
cies of  living  first  enforced,  became,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  with  those  who  had  leisure  and  opportunity,  the 
disposition  consciously  to  interrogate  and  interpret 

the  smaller  we  find  the  number  of  these  useful  expressions.  As  far 
as  language  is  concerned,  an  abstract  word  is  nothing  but  an 
adjective  raised  into  a  substantive."  Auxiliary  verbs  have  the  same 
position  among  verbs  as  abstract  nouns  among  substantives  ;  they 
are  of  late  origin,  and  had  originally  a  more  material  and  expressive 
character. — MAX  MULLER,  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  vol.  ii. 
p.  54.  *  See  Notes  at  the  end  of  the  Chapters. 


I.]    THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.    7 

nature.  In  Roger  Bacon,  we  see  the  human  mind 
striving  unconsciously,  as  it  were,  after  the  true  method 
of  development ;  while  in  Francis  Bacon,  who  systema- 
tized the  principles  and  laid  down  the  rules  of  the  in- 
ductive philosophy,  we  observe  it  doing  with  design  and 
method  that  which  it  had  hitherto  been  blindly  aiming 
at.  But  as  it  is  with  the  infant,  so  was  it  with  humanity  ; 
action  preceded  consciousness,  and  Bacon  himself  was 
the  efflux  of  a  spirit  which  prevailed  and  not  the  creator 
of  it ;  he  was  the  conscious  exponent  of  an  unconscious 
impulse  at  work.  By  thus  humbling  himself  to  obey, 
man  has  conquered  nature  ;  and  those  plenteous  "  fruits 
and  invented  works"  which  Bacon  confidently  antici- 
pated as  "  sponsors  and  sureties  "  for  the  truth  of  his 
method  have  been  reaped  in  the  richest  abundance. 

It  seems  strange  enough  now  to  us  that  men  should 
not  have  sooner  hit  upon  the  excellent  and  profitable 
method  of  induction.  How  came  it  to  pass  that  when 
they  surveyed  organic  nature,  as  Aristotle  notably  did, 
they  failed  to  perceive  the  progress  in  development  from 
the  general  and  simple  to  the  special  and  complex,  which 
is  evident  throughout  it,  and  which  in  modern  times  has 
been  formularized  by  Von  Baer  as  the  law  of  progress  in 
organic  development  ?  Had  they  but  formularized  this 
law  of  increasing  speciality  and  complexity  in  organic 
adaptation  to  external  nature,  then  they  had  scarcely 
failed  to  apply  it  to  conscious  human  development ;  and 
that  would  have  been  to  establish  deductively  the  neces- 
sity of  the  inductive  method.*  Unfortunately,  Aristotle 
stood  alone  ;  and  it  remains  his  particular  merit  to  have 

*  "  Every  one  of  our  beliefs,  as  Kant  saw  very  clearly,  is  at  the 
same  time  subjective  and  objective ;  involving  both  an  active  and 
a  passive  condition  of  the  mind.  The  real  bearing  of  this  great 
logical  conception  is  an  extension  to  the  intellectual  operations  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  biology,  the  correspondence  of  organism 
and  environment  common  to  every  vital  phenomenon. " — COMTt's 
Positive  Polity,  vol.  i.  p.  575.  (English  Translation.) 


8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIX D.  [CHAP. 

foreseen  in  some  sort  the  value  of  the  inductive  method. 
Had  he  also  consistently  followed  it  in  practice,  which 
he  did  not,  there  was  an  impassable  hindrance  to  its 
general  adoption,  in  the  moral  errors  engendered  by 
the  metaphysical  or  subjective  method,  of  which  Plato 
was  so  powerful  a  representative  and  so  eloquent  an 
exponent.  Man,  as  the  measure  of  the  universe, 
esteemed  himself  far  too  highly  to  descend  to  be  the 
servant  and  interpreter  of  nature;  and  this  erroneous 
conceit  not  only  affected  his  conception  of  his  relation 
to  the  rest  of  nature,  but  permeated  his  social  nature, 
arid  vitiated  his  whole  habit  of  thought.  The  supersti- 
tious reverence  of  the  Greek,  who  would  put  to  death  a 
victorious  general  because  he  had  left  his  dead  unburied 
on  the  field  of  battle,  must,  we  cannot  doubt,  have  pre- 
vented Aristotle  from  anatomical  examination  of  the 
structure  of  the  human  body.  The  same  errors  are  con- 
tinually reappearing  in  human  history  under  new  forms : 
what  happened  in  the  Middle  Ages  may  illustrate  for  us 
the  habit  of  Greek  thought ;  for  at  that  time  mistaken 
religious  prejudice  allied  itself  most  closely  with  the 
metaphysical  method  which  exalted  man  so  much  over 
the  rest  of  nature,  opposing  most  virulently  the  birth 
of  positive  science,  which  seemed  to  threaten  to  degrade 
him;  and  for  a  time  it  was  doubtful  which  would 
win.  Can  we  wonder  that  the  erroneous  method  was 
triumphant  in  Greece  in  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ,  when  it  is  only  recently  in  England,  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  after  Christ,  that  the  barbarian's  reverence 
for  a  dead  body  has  permitted  anatomical  dissection,  and 
when  the  finger-bone  of  a  saint,  or  a  rag  of  his  clothing, 
is  still  treasured  up  in  some  parts  of  the  civilized  world 
as  a  precious  and  sacred  relic  indued  with  miraculous 
virtues !  The  evil  of  the  metaphysical  method  was  not 
intellectual  deficiency  only,  but  a  corresponding  baneful 
moral  error. 


i.]    THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.    9 

The  adoption  of  the  inductive  method,  which  makis 
man  the  servant  and  interpreter  of  Nature,  is  in  reality 
the  systematic  pursuance  of  the  law  of  progress  in 
organic  development ;  it  is  the  conscious  intending  of 
the  mind  to  external  realities,  the  submitting  of  the 
understanding  to  things — in  other  words,  the  increasing 
speciality  of  internal  adjustment  to  external  impressions; 
and  the  result  is  a  victory  by  obedience,  an  individual 
increase  through  adaptation  to  outward  relations,  in 
accordance  with  the  so-called  principle  of  natural  selec- 
tion. For  in  mental  development,  as  in  organic  develop- 
ment, that  variation  will  survive  which  is  best  fitted  to 
survive.  The  mental  capacity  of  one  who  is  deprived 
of  any  one  of  his  senses,  which  are  the  inlets  to  im- 
pressions from  without,  or  the  gateways  of  knowledge,  is 
less  than  that  of  one  who  is  in  the  full  possession  of  all 
his  senses;  and  the  great  advances  in  science  have 
uniformly  corresponded  with  the  invention  of  some 
instrument  by  which  the  power  of  the  senses  has  been 
increased,  or  their  range  of  action  extended.  Astronomy 
is  that  which  the  eye  has  been  enabled  to  discover  by 
the  aid  of  the  telescope ;  the  revelations  of  new  and 
marvellous  worlds  of  nature  have  been  due  to  the 
increased  power  of  vision  which  the  microscope  has 
conferred  ;  the  extremely  delicate  balance  has  supplied 
to  science  a  numerical  exactness ;  the  spectrum  has 
furnished  a  means  of  analysing  the  constitution  of 
the  heavenly  bodies ;  and  the  galvanometer  has  given 
hopeful  presages  of  important  discoveries  in  nervous 
function. 

By  the  invention  of  these  powerful  aids  to  the 
senses,  we  have  succeeded  in  penetrating  into  regions  of 
nature  which  in  times  past  were  utterly  unknown  and 
undreamt  of;  but  the  deeper  our  inquiries  have  gone, 
the  more  clear  has  it  been  made  that  the  phenomena 
with  which  the  senses,  whether  aided  or  unaided,  bring 


io  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

us  into  relation,  are  but  an  inconsiderable  fraction,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  the  infinite  magnitude  of  the  universe, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  infinitely  minute  and 
complex  molecular  activities  of  nature,  which  are  equally 
inaccessible  to  our  present  powers  of  perception — as  in 
conceivable  to  us  as  colour  to  the  blind,  or  as  music  to 
the  deaf.  Art  has  attained  to  the  skill  to  measure  the 
one-millionth  of  an  inch,  to  detect  a  rise  in  temperature 
of  8,8ooth  of  a  degree  centigrade,  to  reveal  by  the  spec- 
troscope the  1 80,000, oooth  part  of  a  grain  of  soda;  but 
these  are  probably  only  coarse  measurements  when  com- 
pared with  the  delicacy  of  the  sense  of  smell,  or  at  any 
rate  with  the  infinite  minuteness  of  the  molecular 
activities  of  matter.  There  is  endless  room  for  further 
development  of  the  senses.  Through  them  has  know- 
ledge entered;  and  the  intellect  has  in  turn  devised 
means  for  extending  their  action  and  increasing  their 
discriminating  exactness  :  there  have  been  action  and 
reaction  and  progressive  specialization  and  complication 
thereof.  The  two  aspects  of  this  relation  we  designate, 
in  their  highest  manifestations,  as  cognition  and  action, 
or  science  and  art. 

That  which  lies  outside  the  relations  of  the  subject, 
with  which  man  cannot  come  into  any  sort  of  relation  by 
his  senses  or  otherwise,  which  lies  therefore  altogether 
beyond  consciousness,  has  been  called  the  Real,  the 
Unconditioned,  the  Absolute,  the  Unknowable;  and  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  invent  another  meaningless 
term,  beginning  with  a  capital  letter,  in  order  to  name 
the  unnameable.  Such  existence  has  no  more  relation  to 
us  as  conscious  beings  than  the  moral  feelings  of  man- 
kind have  to  the  sensibility  of  an  oyster  or  of  an  infusory 
animalcule ;  it  could  be  known  only  by  a  consciousness 
which  had  the  power  of  transcending  consciousness ;  and 
to  affirm  anything  of  it,  either  positive  or  negative,  is 
simply  nonsense.  Metaphysicians  have,  it  is  true,  some- 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        \\ 

times  converted  this  impotence  into  a  superconscious 
faculty  of  mind  to  which  they  have  given  a  big  name,  such 
as  Intuition  of  the  Absolute  or  the  like ;  but  although  we 
may  think  it  probable,  or  feel  certain,  that  there  is 
existence  beyond  human  consciousness,  which  is  no 
more  knowable  by  us  than  are  moral  relations  by  the 
oyster  or  the  infusory  animalcule,  we  are  not  entitled 
to  make  a  positive  cognitive  faculty  out  of  what  is  a 
negation.  Whence  do  we  derive  the  assurance  we  have 
of  existence  transcending  human  consciousness,  if  all  we 
know,  feel,  and  believe  are  states  of  consciousness  ?  I 
cannot  but  look  upon  it  as  the  utterance  or  blind  pro- 
phecy of  an  instinct  which  will  have  conscious  develop- 
ment hereafter;  in  other  words,  as  the  prompting  of 
that  impulse  of  evolution  working  in  us  which  has 
been  from  the  beginning,  and  still  is,  and  through  which 
it  may  well  come  to  pass,  ages  hence,  that  much  or 
something  of  what  now  lies  beyond  the  range  of  human 
consciousness  will  come  within  the  consciousness  of 
new  or  more  highly  developed  faculties  of  superior 
beings ;  nature  thus  going  on  in  her  evident  progress  to 
attain  to  more  complete  self-consciousness.  Products 
of  the  mighty  past,  we  forefeel  dimly,  as  it  were,  the 
mighty  future,  of  humanity. 

Thus  much  concerning  the  historical  evolution  of  the 
inductive  method.  But  now  comes  the  important  ques- 
tion whether  it  is  available  for  the  study  of  the  whole 
of  nature.  Can  we  apply  the  true  inductive  and  objec- 
tive method  to  the  investigation  of  psychical  as  well  as 
of  physical  nature?  In  the  latter  case  it  has  long  re- 
ceived universal  sanction ;  but  in  the  study  of  a  man's 
mind  it  is  still  a  question  what  method  should  rightly 
be  employed.  Plainly,  it  is  not  possible  by  simple  ob- 
servation of  others  to  form  true  inductions  concerning 
their  mental  phenomena ;  the  defects  of  an  observation 
which  reaches  only  to  the  visible  results  of  invisible 


12  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

operations  expose  us  without  protection  to  the  hypo- 
crisy, conscious  or  unconscious,  of  the  individual ;  and 
the  positive  tendency,  which  no  one  can  avoid,  to 
interpret  the  action  of  another  mind  according  to  the 
measure  of  his  own,  to  see  not  what  is  in  the  object 
but  what  is  in  the  subject,  frequently  vitiates  an  assumed 
penetration  into  motives.  If  we  call  to  our  aid  the 
principles  of  the  received  system  of  psychology,  matters 
are  not  mended ;  for  its  ill-defined  terms  and  vague 
traditions,  injuriously  affecting  our  perceptions  and 
overruling  the  understanding,  do  not  fail  to  confuse 
and  falsify  inferences.  It  must  unfortunately  be  added 
that,  in  the  present  state  of  physiological  science,  it 
is  quite  impossible  to  ascertain,  by  observation  and 
experiment,  the  nature  of  those  organic  processes  which 
are  the  bodily  conditions  of  mental  phenomena.  There 
would  appear,  then,  to  be  no  help  for  it  but  to  have 
entire  recourse  to  the  psychological  method  —  that 
method  of  interrogating  self-consciousness  which  has 
found  so  much  favour  at  all  times. 

Before  making  any  such  admission,  let  this  reflection 
be  weighed  :  that  the  instinctive  nisus  of  mankind  com- 
monly precedes  the  recognition  of  systematic  method ; 
that  men,  without  knowing  why,  do  follow  a  course  for 
which  very  good  reasons  exist.  Nay,  more  :  the  practical 
instincts  of  mankind  often  work  beneficially  in  actual 
contradiction  to  their  professed  doctrines.  When  in  the 
Middle  Ages  faith  was  put  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
schools,  the  interrogation  of  nature  by  experiment  was 
going  on  in  many  places ;  and  the  superstitious  people 
that  believe  in  the  direct  interference  of  spirits  or  oi 
gods,  still  adopt  such  means  of  self-protection  as  a 
simple  experience  of  nature  teaches.  Man  does  not 
consciously  determine  his  method  and  then  enter  upon 
it;  he  enters  blindly  upon  it  and  at  a  certain  stage 
awakes  to  consciousness.  The  process  of  reasoning 


L]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  M1XD.        13 

itself  adds  nothing  to  knowledge ;  it  only  displays  what 
was  there  before,  brings  to  conscious  possession  what 
before  was  unconscious,  makes  explicit  what  was  implicit 
in  practical  instinct.  In  the  onward  flowing  stream  of 
nature's  organic  evolution,  life  first  becomes  self-con- 
scious in  man :  in  the  slumbering  mental  development 
of  mankind,  it  is  the  genius  who  at  due  time  awakens 
to  active  consciousness  the  sleeping  century.  It  would 
indeed  go  hard  with  mankind  if  they  must  act  wittingly 
before  they  acted  at  all. 

Two  facts  come  out  very  distinctly  from  a  candid 
observation  of  the  state  of  thought  at  the  present  day. 
One  of  these  is  the  little  favour  in  which  metaphysics 
is  held  and  the  very  general  conviction  that  there  is 
no  profit  in  it :  the  consequence  of  which  firmly  fixed 
belief  is,  that  it  is  cultivated  as  a  science  only  by  those 
whose  particular  business  it  is  to  do  so,  who  are  engaged 
not  in  action,  wherein  the  true  balance  of  life  is  main- 
tained, but  in  speculating  in  professorial  chairs,  or  in  other 
positions  where  there  are  little  occasion  for  hard  obser- 
vation and  much  leisure  for  introspective  contemplation  ; 
or  if  by  any  others,  by  the  ambitious  youth  who  goes 
through  an  attack  of  metaphysics  as  a  child  goes  through 
an  attack  of  measles,  getting  haply  an  immunity  from 
a  similar  affection  for  the  rest  of  his  life ;  or,  lastly,  by 
the  active  and  ingenious  intellects  of  those  metaphysical 
philosophers  who,  never  having  been  trained  in  the 
methods  and  work  of  a  scientific  study  of  nature,  have 
not  submitted  their  understandings  to  facts,  but  live  in 
a  more  or  less  ideal  world  of  thought  A  second  fact, 
which  has  scarcely  been  sufficiently  weighed,  is  the 
extreme  favour  in  which  biography  is  held  at  the  pre- 
sent time  and  the  large  development  which  it  is  re- 
ceiving. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  import  of  biography.  As  the 
business  of  a  man  in  the  world  is  action  of  some  kind, 


14  THE  niYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

and  as  his  actions  undoubtedly  result  from  the  relations 
between  him  and  his  surroundings,  it  is  plain  that  bio- 
graphy, which  estimates  both  the  individual  and  his 
circumstances  and  displays  their  inter-workings,  can 
alone  give  an  adequate  account  of  the  man.  What 
was  the  mortal's  force  of  character,  what  was  the  force 
of  circumstances,  how  he  struggled  with  them,  and 
how  he  was  affected  by  them, — what  was  the  life-product 
under  the  particular  conditions  of  its  evolution ; 
these  are  the  questions  which  a  good  biography  aspires 
to  answer.  It  regards  men  as  concrete  beings,  takes 
note,  if  it  does  its  work  properly,  of  their  ancestral 
antecedents,  acknowledges  the  differences  between  them 
in  characters  and  capabilities,  recognises  the  helpful  or 
baneful  influence  of  surroundings,  and  patiently  unfolds 
the  texture  of  life  as  the  inevitable  result  of  the  ele- 
ments out  of  which,  and  the  conditions  under  which, 
it  has  been  worked.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  application  of 
positive  science  to  human  life  and  the  necessary  con- 
sequence of  the  progress  of  the  inductive  philosophy. 
No  marvel,  then,  that  biography  forms  so  large  a  part 
of  the  literature  of  the  day,  and  that  novels,  its 
more  or  less  faithful  mirrors,  are  in  so  great  request. 
The  practical  instincts  of  mankind  are  here,  as 
heretofore,  in  advance  of  systematic  knowledge  or 
method. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  metaphysician  has  dealt  with 
man  as  an  abstract  or  ideal  being,  having  taken  no 
account  of  concrete  men,  has  postulated  him  as  a  certain 
constant  quantity,  and  thereupon  confidently  enunciated 
empty  propositions.  The  consequence  is  that  meta- 
physics has  never  made  any  advance,  but  has  only 
appeared  in  new  garb;  nor  can  it  in  truth  advance 
unless  some  great  addition  is  made  to  the  inborn  power 
of  the  human  mind.  It  surely  argues  no  little  conceit 
in  any  one  to  believe  that  what  Plato  and  Descartes 


i.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        15 

have  not  clone,  he,  following  the  same  method,  will  do.* 
Plato  interrogated  his  own  mind,  and  set  forth  its 
answers  with  a  clearness,  subtilty,  and  elegance  of  style 
that  is  unsurpassed  and  unsurpassable;  until  then  the 
probably  yet  far  distant  event  of  a  better  mind  than  his 
making  its  appearance,  his  system  may  well  remain  as 
the  adequate  representation  of  what  the  metaphysical 
method  can  accomplish.  Superseded  by  a  more  fruitful 
method,  it  is  practically  obsolete ;  and  its  rare  advocate, 
when  such  a  one  is  found,  may  be  said,  like  the  Aturian 
parrot  of  which  Humboldt  tells,  to  speak  in  the  lan- 
guage of  an  extinct  tribe  to  a  people  which  understand 
him  not.t 

But  the  method  of  interrogating  self-consciousness 
may  be  employed,  and  is  largely  employed,  without 
carrying  it  to  a  metaphysical  extreme.  Empirical  psy- 
chology, founded  on  direct  consciousness  as  distin- 
guished from  the  transcendental  consciousness,  whatever 
that  may  be,  on  which  metaphysics  is  based,  claims  to 
give  a  faithful  record  of  our  different  states  of  mind  and 
of  their  mutual  relations,  and  has  been  extravagantly 
lauded  by  the  Scotch  school  as  an  inductive  science. 
It  is  argued,  and  with  great  cogency,  that  such  states  as 

*  "  It  would  be  an  unsound  fancy  and  self-contradictory,  to  expect 
that  tilings  which  have  never  yet  been  done  can  be  done,  except  by 
means  which  have  never  yet  been  tried. " — Nov.  Org.  Aphorism  vi. 
Forasmuch,  however,  as  we  have  good  grounds  for  believing  that 
there  is  an  accumulation  of  the  inherited  results  of  mental  acqui- 
sitions through  the  ages,  whereby  an  inborn  addition  is  made  to  the 
power  of  the  individual  mind,  we  must  admit  the  possibility  that 
those  who  can  detect  the  forms  and  laws  of  thought  by  introspec- 
tion may,  after  all,  be  able  to  do  more  than  has  been  dene  in  times 
past. 

t  ' '  There  still  lives,  and  it  is  a  singular  fact,  an  old  parrot  in 
Maypures  which  cannot  be  understood,  because,  as  the  natives 
assert,  it  speaks  the  language  of  the  Atures — an  extinct  tribe  of 
Indians,  whose  last  refuge  was  the  rocks  of  the  foaming  cataract  of 
the  Orinoco." — HUMDOLDT,  Views  of  Nature,  vol.  i.  p.  172. 


16  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

thoughts,  feelings,  memories,  volitions,  are  subjective, 
known  only  to  the  individual's  consciousness,  the  words 
denoting  them  having  acquired  their  meaning  from 
introspection ;  that  they  admit  of  classification,  which 
obviously  can  only  be  done  by  introspection  ;  and  that 
there  may  therefore  be  a  science  of  mind,  a  psychology, 
which  may  stand  on  its  own  basis  and  be  studied  in- 
dependently of  all  other  sciences.  The  question  then  is 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  basis.  Its  value  as  an  inde- 
pendent science  must  plainly  rest  upon  the  trustworthi- 
ness and  the  sufficiency  or  competence  of  consciousness 
as  a  witness  of  that  which  takes  place  in  the  mind.  Is 
the  foundation  sufficiently  secure?  It  may  well  be 
doubted ;  and  for  the  following  reasons  : — 

(a.)  The  first,  which  is  of  no  great  weight,  seeing 
that  a  similar  objection  might  be  made  to  observa- 
tion in  any  other  science,  is,  that  there  are  but 
few  individuals  who  are  capable  of  attending  to  the 
succession  of  phenomena  in  their  own  minds ;  such  in- 
trospection demanding  a  particular  cultivation,  and  being 
practised  with  any  degree  of,  or  pretence  to,  success 
by  those  only  who  have  learned  the  terms,  and  been 
imbued  with  the  theories,  of  the  system  of  psychology 
supposed  to  be  thereby  established.  And  with  what 
success  ? 

(£.)  There  is  no  agreement  between  those  who  have 
acquired  the  power  of  introspection  ;  and  men  of  ap- 
parently equal  cultivation  and  capacity  will,  with  the 
utmost  sincerity  and  confidence,  lay  down  inconsistent 
or  directly  contradictory  propositions.  It  is  not  possible 
to  convince  either  opponent  of  error,  as  it  might  be  in 
a  matter  of  objective  science,  because  he  appeals  to  a 
witness  whose  evidence  can  be  taken  by  no  one  but 
himself,  and  whose  veracity,  therefore,  cannot  be  tested. 
He  brings  forward  the  factitious  deliverances  of  his  indi- 
vidual consciousness,  but  no  fact  which  is  capable  of 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  7 HE  STUDY  OF  MIND.         17 

being  demonstrated  to  another  mind.  Now  there  is  no 
witness  who  is  so  easily  suborned  to  give  false  evidence, 
and  whose  testimony  at  all  times  requires  such  stringent 
cross-examination,  as  self-consciousness.  For  when  it  is 
at  work,  the  observed  and  the  observer  are  one,  and  the 
observer  is  not  likely  in  such  case  to  be  unbiased  by 
the  feelings  of  the  observed  and  to  conform  rigidly  to 
the  rules  of  exact  observation.  In  external  observation 
we  find  it  necessary  to  lay  down  strict  rules  in  order 
to  avoid  fallacies ;  it  is  certainly  not  less  necessary  to 
do  so  in  observation  from  within. 

(c.)  To  direct  consciousness  inwardly  to  the  observa- 
tion of  a  particular  state  of  mind  is  to  isolate  that 
activity  for  the  time,  to  cut  it  off  from  its  relations,  and, 
therefore,  to  render  it  unnatural.  In  order  to  observe 
its  own  action,  it  is  necessary  that  the  mind  pause  from 
activity ;  and  yet  it  is  the  train  of  activity  that  is  to  be 
observed.  So  long  as  you  cannot  effect  the  pause 
necessary  for  self-contemplation,  there  cannot  be  a 
sufficient  observation  of  the  current  of  activity  :  if  the 
pause  is  effected,  then  there  can  be  nothing  to  observe ; 
there  would  be  no  consciousness,  for  consciousness  is 
awakened  by  the  transition  from  one  physical  or  mental 
state  to  another.*  This  cannot  be  accounted  a  vain  and 
theoretical  objection,  for  the  results  of  introspection  too 
surely  confirm  its  validity :  what  was  a  question  once  is 

*  To  persist  in  one  mode  or  state  of  consciousness  would  be 
really  to  be  unconscious  ;  wherefore  when  our  attention  is  given 
intensely  to  some  observation  or  reflection,  so  that  we  are  absorbed 
in  it,  we  hardly  seem  to  be  conscious  ;  in  fact,  consciousness  is 
aroused  when  the  attention  wanders.  We  do  not  perceive  one  con- 
tinuous and  unvarying  action  upon  the  senses,  e.g.  the  movement 
of  the  earth,  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  upon  the  surface  of 
our  bodies,  &c.  For  the  same  reason  probably  we  do  not  hear 
the  music  of  the  spheres  ;  a  sound  of  unvarying  tone  and  continu- 
ance falling  on  the  ears  from  the  first  moment  of  life.  And  yet  it 
is  possible  the  noise  may  be  stupendous. 


i8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

a  question  still,  and  instead  of  being  resolved  by  intro- 
spective analysis  is  only  "  fixed  and  fed."(2) 

(d.)  The  madman's  delusion,  which  is  only  an  extreme 
instance  of  error  growing  out  of  causes  that  are  con- 
stantly at  work  to  pervert  an  individual's  feeling  and  to 
vitiate  his  reasoning,  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  excite 
profound  distrust,  not  only  in  the  objective  truth,  but  in 
the  subjective  worth,  of  the  testimony  of  an  individual's 
self-consciousness.  Descartes  laid  down  the  test  of  a 
true  belief  to  be  that  which  the  mind  could  clearly  and 
distinctly  conceive :  if  there  is  one  thing  more  clearly 
and  distinctly  conceived  than  another,  it  is  commonly 
the  madman's  delusion.  No  marvel,  then,  that  psycho- 
logists, since  the  time  of  Descartes,  have  held  that  the 
veracity  of  consciousness  is  to  be  relied  upon  only 
under  certain  rules,  from  the  violation  of  which,  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  believed,  the  contradictions  of  philosophy 
had  arisen.  On  what  evidence,  then,  do  the  rules  rest  ? 
Either  on  the  evidence  of  consciousness,  whence  it 
comes  to  pass  that  each  philosopher  and  each  lunatic 
has  his  own  rules,  and  no  advance  is  made ;  or  upon  the 
observation  and  judgment  of  mankind,  to  confess  which 
is  very  much  like  throwing  self-consciousness  overboard 
— not  otherwise  than  as  was  advantageously  done  by 
positive  science  when  the  exact  figures  on  the  ther- 
mometer, and  not  the  subjective  and  deceptive  feelings 
of  heat  or  cold,  were  recognised  to  be  the  true  test  of 
the  individual's  temperature. 

The  charge  against  self-consciousness  is  not  merely 
that  it  cannot  always  be  relied  upon  in  that  of  which  it 
does  give  information,  but  that  it  does  not  give  any 
account  of  a  large  and  important  part  of  our  mental 
activity :  its  light  reaches  only  to  states  of  conscious- 
ness, not  to  states  of  mind.  Its  evidence,  then,  is  not 
only  untrustworthy  save  under  conditions  which  it  no- 
wise helps  us  to  fix,  but  it  is  of  little  value,  because  it 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        19 

has  reference  only  to  a  small  part  of  that  for  which  its 
testimony  is  invoked.  May  we  not  then  justly  say  that 
self-consciousness  is  utterly  incompetent  to  supply  the 
facts  which  shall  lay  the  foundations  of  a  truly  inductive 
psychology  ?  Let  the  following  reasons  further  warrant 
the  assertion  : — 

i.  It  is  the  fundamental  maxim  of  inductive  philoso- 
phy that  observation  should  begin  with  simple  instances, 
ascent  being  made  from  them  step  by  step  through 
appropriate  generalizations,  and  that  no  particulars 
should  be  neglected.  How  does  the  interrogation  of 
self-consciousness  fulfil  this  just  demand?  It  is  a 
method  which  is  applicable  only  to  mind  at  a  high 
degree  of  development,  so  that  it  perforce  begins  with 
those  most  complex  instances  which  give  the  le*ast 
certain  information  ;  while  it  passes  completely  by  mind 
in  its  lower  stages  of  development,  ignoring  those 
simpler  instances  which  give  the  best  or  securest  infor- 
mation. In  this  it  resembles  the  philosopher  who,  while 
he  gazed  upon  the  stars,  fell  into  the  water ;  "  for  if,"  as 
Bacon  says,  "  he  had  looked  down,  he  might  have  seen 
the  stars  in  the  water,  but,  looking  aloft,  he  could  not 
see  the  water  in  the  stars."(3)  Where  has  the  animal 
any  place  in  the  accepted  system  of  psychology  ?  or  the 
child,  the  direction  of  whose  early  mental  development 
is  commonly  decisive  of  its  future  destiny?  To  speak 
of  induction,  where  so  many  important  instances  are 
neglected  and  others  are  selected  according  to  caprice 
or  the  ease  of  convenience,  is  to  rob  the  word  of  all 
definite  meaning  and  mischievously  to  misuse  it. 

Psychology  has  neglected  not  only  all  animals  except 
man,  as  it  was  bound  by  its  method  to  do,  but  all  the 
lower  races  of  men  :  instead  of  being  a  science  of  mental 
phenomena  as  these  are  presented  in  nature,  it  represents 
the  deliverances  of  the  complex  self-consciousness  of 
an  educated  white  man  who  has  been  specially  trained 


ao  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

in  its  method.  Hence  have  arisen  the  hot  disputes 
between  the  empiricists  who  looked  on  one  side  of  the 
shield  and  the  idealists  who  looked  on  the  other  side  of 
it — between  those  who  hold  that  all  knowledge  is  derived 
from  experience,  and  those  who  uphold  the  existence  of 
forms  of  thought  in  the  mind  anterior  to  experience. 
Study  the  development  of  mind  from  its  beginning  in 
animals  through  its  manifold  gradations  up  to  its  highest 
reach  in  man,  and  it  is  made  probable  that  the  so-called 
forms  of  thought  represent  the  innate  mental  capacities 
which  are  the  result  of  evolution — which  the  civilized 
man  has,  and  which  the  animal  or  the  lowest  savage  has  not. 
A  psychology  which  is  truly  inductive  must  follow  the 
order  of  nature,  and  begin  where  mind  begins  in  the 
animal  and  infant,  rising  thence  gradually  to  those 
higher  and  more  complex  mental  phenomena  which  the 
introspective  philosopher  discerns  or  thinks  he  discerns. 
Certainly  it  may  be  said,  and  it  has  been  said,  that 
inferences  as  to  the  mental  phenomena  of  the  child  can 
be  correctly  formed  from  the  phenomena  of  the  adult 
mind.  But  it  is  exactly  because  erroneous  inferences 
have  been  made  in  that  way,  that  the  mental  phenomena 
of  the  child  have  been  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted, 
and  that  psychology  has  not  received  the  benefit  of  the 
correction  which  a  faithful  observation  of  them  would 
have  furnished.  It  was  the  physiologist  who  by  a  care- 
ful observation  of  the  lower  animals,  "  having  entered 
firmly  on  the  true  road,  and  submitting  his  understanding 
to  things,"  arrived  at  generalizations  which  were  found 
to  explain  many  of  the  mental  phenomena  of  the  child, 
and  which  have  furthermore  thrown  much  light  upon 
the  mental  life  of  the  adult.  The  careful  study  of  the 
genesis  of  mind  is  as  necessary  to  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  mental  phenomena  as  the  study  of  its  plan  of  de- 
velopment confessedly  is  to  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  bodily  organization  and  its  functions. 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        21 

Again,  it  rriight  be  thought  a  monstrous  mistake  of 
nature  to  have  brought  forth  so  many  idiots  and  lunatics, 
seeing  that  the  introspective  psychologists,  though  mak- 
ing a  profession  of  induction  with  their  lips,  have  taken 
no  notice  whatever  of  the  large  collection  of  instances 
afforded  by  such  unwelcome  anomalies.  Certainly  it 
may  be  said,  and  no  doubt  it  has  been  said,  that  the 
mental  phenomena  of  the  idiot  and  lunatic  are  morbid, 
and  do  not,  therefore,  concern  psychology.  It  is  true 
that  they  do  not  concern  a  psychology  which  violently 
separates  itself  from  nature.  But  it  is  exactly  because 
psychology  has  thus  unwarrantably  severed  itself  from 
nature — of  which  the  so-called  morbid  phenomena  are 
no  less  natural  a  part  than  are  the  phenomena"  of  health 
— that  it  has  no  sure  foundations ;  that  it  is  not  induc- 
tive ;  that  it  has  not  received  the  benefit  of  the  corrective 
instances  which  a  faithful  observation  of  the  unsound 
mind  would  have  afforded.  In  reality  the  phenomena  of 
insanity,  presenting  a  variation  of  conditions  which 
cannot  be  produced  artificially — the  instantia  contra- 
dictoria — furnish  what  iu  such  matter  ought  to  have 
been  seized  with  the  utmost  eagerness ;  namely,  actual 
experiments  well  suited  to  correct  false  generalization 
and  to  establish  the  principles  of  a  truly  inductive 
science.  The  laws  of  mental  action  are  not  miraculously 
changed  nor  reversed  in  madness,  though  the  conditions 
of  their  operation  are  different;  and  nature  does  not 
recognise  the  artificial  and  ill-starred  divisions  which  men, 
for  the  sake  of  convenience,  and  not  unfrequently  in  the 
interests  of  ignorance,  make. 

2.  Consciousness,  which  does  not  even  tell  us  that  we 
have  a  brain,  is  certainly  incompetent  to  give  any  ac- 
count of  the  essential  material  conditions  which  underlie 
every  mental  manifestation  and  determine  the  character 
of  it.  Let  the  function  of  an  individual's  optic  ganglia 
be  abolished  by  disease  or  otherwise,  and  he  would  not 


22  THE  FH\SIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

be  conscious  that  he  was  blind  until  experience  had  con- 
vinced him  of  it.  Let  him  have  a  sensation  of  light  or  of 
sound,  or  any  other  seemingly  most  simple  sensation,  he 
would  not  learn  through  consciousness  how  complex  it 
really  is,  nor  even  whether  it  proceeded  from  within  or 
from  without — whether  it  was  entirely  subjective  or 
whether  it  had  an  objective  cause;  that  he  could  only  learn 
by  subsequent  discovery.  The  most  simple  phenomenon 
which  consciousness  makes  known  to  us  is  really  very 
complex ;  a  feeling  which  is  elementary  to  it  may  be  far 
from  elementary ;  and  we  cannot,  by  its  means,  go  deeper 
into  the  discovery  of  the  simpler  constituent  elements. 
Clearly  then  the  science  which  does  enable  us  to  go 
deeper  in  the  analysis  of  the  really  complex  state  which 
the  most  simple  delivery  of  consciousness  is,  must  lie 
at  the  foundation  of  a  true  psychology.  On  grounds 
which  will  not  easily  be  shaken  it  is  now  indeed  admitted, 
that  with  every  display  of  mental  activity  there  is  a  cor- 
relative change  or  waste  of  nervous  element ;  and  on  the 
condition  of  the  material  substratum  must  depend  the 
degree  and  character  of  the  manifested  energy  or  the 
mental  phenomenon.  Now  the  received  system  of  psy- 
chology gives  no  attention  to  these  manifold  variations 
of  feeling  in  the  same  individual  which  are  due  to  tem- 
porary modifications  of  the  bodily  state,  and  by  which 
the  ideas  of  the  relations  of  objects  to  self  and  to  one 
another  are  so  greatly  affected.  The  quality  of  the 
ideas  which  arise  in  the  mind  under  certain  circum- 
stances, the  whole  character  indeed  of  our  insight  at  the 
time,  is  notably  determined  in  great  part  by  the  feeling 
which  may  then  have  sway ;  and  that  feeling  is  not  always 
objectively  caused,  but  may  be  entirely  due  to  a  par- 
ticular bodily  condition,  as  the  daily  experience  of  every 
one  may  convince  him,  and  as  the  early  phenomena  of 
insanity  often  illustrate  in  a  striking  manner.  The  most 
ingenious  introspectionist  could  never  discover  from  the 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        23 

revelations  of  self-consciousness  that  the  cause  of  a  par- 
ticular mood  of  mind  lay  in  the  liver,  or  in  the  heart,  or 
in  some  other  organ  of  the  body ;  nor  could  he  gain 
from  them  the  least  inkling  how  essentially  the  opera- 
tions of  these  organs  affect  the  characters  of  the  in- 
dividual, the  actual  constitution  of  his  ego.  Every 
sensation,  again,  is  located  by  consciousness  peripherally; 
it  tells  us  plainly  that  touch  is  in  the  finger,  sound  in 
the  ear,  sight  in  the  eye,  smell  in  the  nostrils  ;  whereas 
physiological  observation  proves  to  us  conclusively  that 
this  information  is  incorrect,  and  that  each  sensation 
has  its  immediate  seat  centrally  in  the  brain. 

Again,  Bacon  long  ago  set  down  individual  psychology 
as  wanting ;  and  insisted  on  a  scientific  and  accurate 
dissection  of  minds  and  characters,  and  the  secret 
dispositions  of  particular  men,  so  "  that  from  the 
knowledge  thereof  better  rules  may  be  framed  for  the 
treatment  of  the  mind."(*)  So  far  as  the  present  psy- 
chology is  concerned,  the  individual  might  have  no 
existence  in  nature ;  he  is  an  inconvenience  to  a  system 
which,  in  neglecting  the  individual  character  or  tem- 
perament, ignores  another  large  collection  of  valuable 
instances.  -So  far  as  truth  is  concerned,  however,  the 
individual  is  of  some  moment,  seeing  that  he  often  posi- 
tively contradicts  the  principles  arbitrarily  laid  down  by 
a  theoretical  system.  He  who  would  realize  how  vague, 
uncertain,  speculative,  how  far  from  the  position  of  a 
true  science,  psychology  is,  should  endeavour  to  grasp 
some  one  of  its  so-called  principles,  and  to  apply  it 
deductively  in  order  to  predicate  something  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  particular  person  ;  let  him  do  that,  and  he  can- 
not fail  to  perceive  how  much  he  has  been  mocked  with 
the  semblance  of  knowledge,  and  must  needs  agree  with 
Bacon  as  to  the  necessity  of  a  "  scientific  and  accurate 
dissection  of  minds  and  characters  and  the  secret  dis- 
positions of  particular  men."  That,  moreover,  is  a  study 


24  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

which  will  be  prosecuted  successfully  not  by  looking 
within  but  by  looking  without  himself. 

When  the  theologist,  who  occupies  himself  with  the 
supersensuous,  has  said  all  that  he  has  to  say  from  his 
point  of  view;  when  the  jurist,  who  represents  those 
principles  which  the  wisdom  of  society  has  established, 
has  in  turn  exhaustively  argued  from  his  point  of  view, — 
then  the  ultimate  appeal  in  a  concrete  case  must  be  to 
him,  be  he  physiologist  or  physician,  who  deals  with  the 
bodily  organization;  through  his  ground  only  can  the 
theologist  and  jurist  pass  to  their  departments,  and  they 
must  accept  their  knowledge  of  it  from  him :  on  the 
foundation  of  facts  which  the  faithful  investigation  of  the 
bodily  nature  lays,  must  rest,  if  they  are  to  rest  safely, 
their  systems.  Certainly  it  is  not  probable  that  this 
most  desirable  and  inevitable  result  will  come  to  pass  in 
this  day  or  generation;  for  it  is  not  unknown  how  far 
distant  yet  is  the  day  of  full  and  exact  physiological 
knowledge,  nor  how  slowly,  when  it  approaches,  we  may 
expect  the  light  to  penetrate  the  thick  fogs  of  ignorance, 
and  to  dissipate  the  irritated  prejudices  which  ever  op- 
pose the  gentle  advent  of  new  truth.  Happily,  it  is 
certain  that  in  the  mortality  of  man  lies  the  salvation  of 
truth. 

3.  There  is  an  appropriation  of  external  impressions 
by  the  mind  or  brain,  which  regularly  takes  place  without 
any,  or  only  with  a  very  obscure,  affection  of  conscious- 
ness. As  the  various  organs  of  the  body  obtain  from 
the  blood  the  material  suitable  to  their  nourishment  and 
assimilate  it,  so  the  organ  of  the  mind  unconsciously 
appropriates,  through  the  inlets  of  the  senses,  the  influ- 
ences of  its  surroundings.  The  impressions  which  it  thus 
receives  and  retains  do  not  produce  definite  ideas  and 
feelings,  but  they  nevertheless  permanently  affect  the 
mind's  nature ;  so  that  as  an  individual  consciously 
provides  his  food,  and  then  leaves  the  due  assimilation 


i.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        25 

of  it  to  the  unconscious  action  of  the  organism,  in  like 
manner  may  he  consciously  arrange  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  will  live,  but  cannot  then  prevent  the  uncon- 
scious assimilation  of  their  influence  and  the  correspond 
ing  modification  of  his  character.  Not  only  slight  habits 
of  movement  are  thus  acquired,  but  habits  of  thought 
and  feeling  are  imperceptibly  organized ;  so  that  an 
acquired  nature  may  ultimately  govern  one  who  is  not  at 
all  conscious  that  he  has  changed.  Let  any  one  take 
careful  note  of  his  dreams,  he  will  find  that  many  of  the 
seemingly  unfamiliar  things  with  which  his  mind  is  then 
occupied,  and  which  appear  to  be  new  and  strange  pro- 
ductions, are  traceable  to  the  unconscious  appropriations 
of  the  day.  There  are  other  stories  on  record  like  that 
well-known  one  which  Coleridge  quotes  of  the  servant- 
girl  who,  in  the  ravings  of  fever,  repeated  long  passages 
in  the  Hebrew  language,  which  she  did  not  understand, 
and  could  not  repeat  when  well,  but  which,  when  living 
with  a  clergyman,  she  had  heard  him  read  aloud.  The 
remarkable  memories  of  certain  idiots,  who,  much  defi- 
cient in  or  nearly  destitute  of  intelligence,  will  repeat  the 
longest  stories  with  the  greatest  accuracy,  testify  also  to 
this  unconscious  cerebral  action  ;  and  the  way  in  which 
the  excitement  of  a  great  sorrow,  or  some  other  cause, 
such  as  the  last  flicker  of  departing  life,  will  sometimes 
call  forth  in  idiots  manifestations  of  mind  of  which  they 
always  seemed  incapable,  renders  it  certain  that  much 
is  unconsciously  taken  up  by  them  which  cannot  be 
uttered,  but  which  leaves  its  relics  in  the  mind. 

It  is  a  truth  which  cannot  be  too  distinctly  borne  in 
mind,  that  consciousness  is  not  co-extensive  with  mind, 
that  it  is  not  mind  but  an  incidental  accompaniment  of 
mind.  It  may  seem,  perhaps  it  is,  an  extravagant  thing 
to  say,  but  to  me  it  seems  conceivable  that  a  man  might 
be  as  good  a  reasoning  machine  without  as  he  is  with 
consciousness,  if  we  assumed  his  nervous  system  to  be 


*6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

equally  susceptible  to  the  influences  which  now  affect  him 
consciously,  and  if  we  had  the  means,  by  microscope  or 
galvanoscope  or  some  other  more  delicate  instrument 
hereafter  to  be  invented,  of  reading  off  the  results  of  his 
cerebral  operations  from  without :  we  should  be  dis- 
pensing only  with  the  sense  by  which  the  operations 
are  observed  within,  not  with  the  power  by  which  they 
are  done — with  the  witness  not  with  the  agent  of 
them.  From  the  first  moment  of  its  independent 
existence  the  brain  begins  to  assimilate  impressions 
from  without,  and  to  react  thereto  in  corresponding 
organic  adaptations;  this  it  does  at  first  without  con- 
sciousness, and  this  it  continues  to  do  unconsciously 
more  or  less  throughout  life.  Thus  it  is  that  mental 
power  is  being  organized  before  the  supervention  of  con- 
sciousness, and  that  the  mind  is  subsequently  regularly 
modified  as  a  natural  process  without  the  intervention  of 
consciousness.  The  preconscious  action  of  mind,  as 
certain  metaphysical  psychologists  in  Germany  have 
called  it,  and  the  unconscious  action  of  mind,  which  may 
perhaps  be  now  deemed  to  be  established,  are  assuredly 
facts  of  which  the  most  ardent  introspective  psychologist 
must  admit  that  self-consciousness  can  give  us  no  ac- 
count. I  do  not  overlook  the  fact  that  some  writers  hold 
these  supposed  unconscious  states  not  to  be,  as  they 
appear,  entirely  unconscious,  believing  that  it  is  because 
slight  attention  only  is  given  to  them  that  they  pass  away 
immediately  and  are  forgotten.  But  if  this  be  granted,  it 
does  not  really  alter  matters  much ;  for  it  would  only 
prove  that  the  brain  or  mind  may  do  its  work  with  a 
consciousness  so  slight  as  to  be  almost  nil.  A  con- 
sciousness which  has  sunk  to  such  a  degree  of  subcon- 
sciousness  as  to  be  practically  unconsciousness,  cannot 
be  of  much  moment  in  the  operations :  when  so  much 
is  dispensed  with,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  contend 
for  the  importance  of  the  little  that  is  left. 


I.]         THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  01<  MIND.         27 

4.  That  which  has  existed  with  any  completeness  in 
consciousness  leaves  behind  it,  after  its  disappearance 
therefrom,  in  the  mind  or  brain,  a  functional  disposition 
to  its  reproduction  or  reappearance  in  consciousness  at 
some  future  time.(5)  Of  no  mental  act  can  we  say  that  it 
is  "writ  in  water;"  something  remains  from  it  whereby  its 
recurrence  is  facilitated.  Every  impression  of  sense  upon 
the  brain,  every  current  of  molecular  activity  from  one  to 
another  part  of  the  brain,  every  cerebral  reaction  which 
passes  into  muscular  movement,  leaves  behind  it  some 
modification  of  the  nerve  elements  concerned  in  its  func- 
tion some  after-effect  or,  so  to  speak,  memory  of  itself 
in  them  which  renders  its  reproduction  an  easier  matter, 
the  more  easy  the  more  often  it  has  been  repeated,  and 
makes  it  impossible  to  say  that,  however  trivial,  it  shall 
not  under  some  circumstances  recur.  Let  the  excita- 
tion take  place  in  one  of  two  nerve-cells  lying  side  by 
side,  and  between  which  there  was  not  any  origina* 
specific  difference,  there  will  be  ever  afterwards  a  differ- 
ence between  them.  This  physiological  process,  what- 
ever be  its  nature,  is  the  physical  basis  of  memory,  and  it 
is  the  foundation  of  the  development  of  all  our  mental 
functions. 

That  modification  which  persists  or  is  retained  in 
structure  after  function,  has  been  differently  described  as 
a  residuum,  or  relic,  or  trace,  or  disposition,  or  vestige, 
or  again  as  potential,  latent,  or  dormant  idea.  Not  only 
definite  ideas,  but  all  affections  of  the  nervous  system, 
feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain,  desires,  and  even  its  out- 
ward reactions,  thus  leave  behind  them  their  structural 
effects,  and  lay  the  foundations  of  modes  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  action.  Particular  talents  are  sometimes 
formed  quite,  or  almost  quite,  involuntarily ;  and  com- 
plex actions,  which  were  first  consciously  performed  by 
dint  of  great  application,  become  automatic  by  repeti- 
tion ;  ideas,  which  were  at  first  consciously  associated, 


23  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ultimately  coalesce  and  call  one  another  up  without  any 
consciousness,  as  we  see  in  the  quick  perception  or 
intuition  of  the  man  of  large  worldly  experience ;  and 
feelings,  once  active,  leave  behind  them  their  uncon- 
scious residua,  thus  affecting  the  general  tone  of  the 
character,  so  that,  apart  from  the  original  or  inborn 
nature  of  the  individual,  contentment,  melancholy, 
cowardice,  braver)-,  and  even  moral  feeling  are  generated 
as  the  results  of  particular  life-experiences.  Conscious- 
ness is  not  able  to  give  any  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  these  various  residua  are  perpetuated,  and  how 
they  exist  latent  in  the  mental  organization ;  but  a  fever, 
a  poison  in  the  blood,  or  a  dream,  may  at  any  moment 
recall  ideas,  feelings,  and  activities  which  seemed  to  have 
gone  for  ever.  The  lunatic  sometimes  reverts,  in  his 
ravings,  to  scenes  and  events  of  which,  when  in  his 
sound  senses,  he  has  no  memory ;  the  fever-stricken 
patient  may  pour  out  passages  in  a  language  which  he 
understands  not,  but  which  he  has  accidentally  heard  ;  a 
dream  of  being  at  school  again  brings  back  with  painful 
vividness  the  school  feelings ;  and  before  him  who  is 
drowning  every  event  of  his  life  seems  to  flash  in  one 
moment  of  strange  and  vivid  consciousness.  (6)  Some 
persons  who  suffer  from  recurrent  insanity  remember 
only  in  their  lucid  intervals  the  facts  of  former  lucid 
intervals,  and  in  their  paroxysms  of  derangement  the 
ideas,  feelings,  and  events  of  former  paroxysms.  Dreams 
not  remembered  in  the  waking  state  may  yet  affect 
future  dreams,  appearing  in  them  as  vague  and  confused 
recollections.  * 

•  "  A  Lutheran  clergyman  of  Philadelphia  informed  Dr.  Rush 
that  Germans  and  Swedes,  of  whom  he  had  a  considerable  number 
in  his  congregation,  when  near  death,  always  prayed  in  their  native 
language,  though  some  of  them,  he  was  confident,  had  not  spoken 
these  languages  for  fifty  or  sixty  years." — ABERCROMEIE,  On  tJu 
Intellectual  Povtert,  p.  142,  8th  ed.  1838. 


I.J        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        29 

It  has  been  before  said  that  mind  and  consciousness 
are  not  synonymous;  it  may  now  be  added,  that  the 
existence  of  mind  does  not  necessarily  involve  its  con- 
stant activity.  Descartes  maintained  that  the  mind  is 
a  spiritual  activity  which  always  thinks;  and  others, 
resting  on  that  assumption,  have  held  that  we  must 
always  dream  in  sleep,  because  the  mind,  being  spiritual, 
cannot  cease  to  act;  for  non-activity  would  be  non- 
existence.  Such  opinions  illustrate  how  completely 
metaphysical  conceptions  may  overrule  the  best  under- 
standing :  non-activity  of  function  is  certainly  non-exist- 
ence of  function,  but  it  is  not  mental  annihilation ;  so  far 
from  the  mind  being  always  active,  it  is  the  fact  that 
at  each  moment  the  greater  part  of  the  mental  organi- 
zation is  not  only  unconscious,  but  inactive.  Mental 
power  exists  in  statical  equilibrium  as  well  as  in  mani- 
fested energy;  and  the  utmost  tension  of  a  particular 
mental  activity  may  not  avail  to  call  forth  from  their 
secret  repository  the  dormant  energies  of  latent  faculty, 
even  when  its  function  is  most  urgently  needed :  no 
man  can  call  to  mind  at  any  moment  the  thousandth 
part  of  his  knowledge.  How  utterly  helpless  is  con- 
sciousness to  give  any  account  of  the  statical  condition 
of  mind !  But  as  statical  mind  is  in  reality  the  statical 
condition  of  the  nervous  substrata  which  minister  to 
its  manifestations,  it  is  plain  that,  if  we  ever  are  to  know 
anything  of  mental  organization,  it  is  to  the  progress 
of  physiology  that  we  must  look  for  information. 

5.  Consciousness  reveals  nothing  of  the  actual  process 
by  which  one  idea  calls  another  into  activity,  and  has 
no  control  whatever  over  the  manner  of  the  repro- 
duction ;  it  is  only  when  the  idea  is  made  active  by 
virtue  of  some  association,  when  the  effect  solicits  or 
extorts  attention,  that  we  are  conscious  of  it;  and  there 
is  no  power  in  the  mind  to  call  up  ideas  indifferently. 
If  we  would  recollect  something  which  at  the  moment 
3 


30  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

escapes  us,  confessedly  the  best  way  of  succeeding  is 
to  permit  the  brain  to  work  unconsciously ;  and  while 
the  consciousness  is  otherwise  occupied,  the  forgotten 
name  or  circumstance  will  oftentimes  flash  into  the 
memory.  A  glass  of  wine  or  some  other  stimulant  shall 
sometimes  do  more  to  arouse  ideas  by  its  physical 
or  chemical  action  upon  the  nerve-element  than  the 
strongest  efforts  of  attention  will  do.  In  composition 
the  writer's  consciousness  is  engaged  chiefly  with  his 
pen  and  with  the  sentences  which  he  is  forming,  while 
the  results  of  the  brain's  unconscious  working,  matured 
by  an  insensible  gestation,  emerge  from  unknown  depths 
into  consciousness,  and  are  by  its  help  embodied  in 
appropriate  words.  As  there  are  undulations  of  ether 
which  are  too  rapid,  and  others  which  are  too  slow,  to 
produce  the  sensation  of  light  when  they  strike  upon  the 
eye,  so  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  there  may  be  molecular 
vibrations  in  the  nerve- element  which  are  either  too  rapid 
or  too  slow  to  generate  consciousness,  but  which,  never- 
theless, suffice  to  effect  these  latent  associations. 

Not  only  is  the  actual  process  of  the  association  of 
our  ideas  independent  of  consciousness,  but  that  assimi- 
lation or  blending  of  similar  ideas,  or  of  the  like  in 
different  ideas,  by  which  general  ideas  are  formed,  is 
in  no  way  under  the  control  or  cognizance  of  conscious- 
ness. When  the  like  in  two  perceptions  is  appropriated, 
while  that  in  which  they  differ  is  neglected,  it  would 
seem  to  be  by  an  assimilative  action  of  the  nerve-cells 
or  circuits  of  the  brain  which,  particularly  modified  by 
the  first  impression,  have  an  attraction  or  affinity  for 
a  like  subsequent  impression :  the  nerve-element  so 
modified  and  so  ministering  takes  to  itself  that  which 
is  suitable  and  which  it  can  assimilate,  or  make  of  the 
same  kind  with  itself,  while  it  rejects,  for  appropriation 
by  other  nerve-circuits,  that  which  is  unlike  and  which 
will  not  blend.  Or  that  which  takes  place  may  perhaps 


7.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        31 

be  represented  more  correctly  in  this  way :  when  two 
objects  resemble  one  another,  having  common  qualities 
of  which  we  can  form  a  general  idea,  that  which  is  like 
in  them  will  necessarily*  excite  in  the  same  nerve-tract 
of  the  brain  exactly  the  same  number  and  kind  of 
molecular  vibrations;  the  second  perception  will  be  a 
reproduction  of  the  first,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  perception 
of  the  qualities  which  the  second  object  has  in  common 
with  the  first.  Now  this  reproduction  of  the  same  vibra- 
tions, which  is  the  perception  of  the  like  in  two  ideas,  will 
take  place  the  more  readily  because  of  the  functional 
disposition  to  the  reproduction  of  them  which  the  first 
perception  has  left  behind  it ;  wherefore,  as  all  experi- 
ence shows,  there  is  a  tendency  of  mind  to  perceive 
resemblances.  That  in  which  the  second  perception 
differs  from  the  first  will  also  excite  its  appropriate  vibra- 
tions, but  if  they  do  not  blend  into  unity  with  any 
previously  experienced  ones,  they  are  not  readily  appre- 
hended, and  may  be  overlooked  entirely  by  conscious- 
ness ;  they  are  so  feeble  or  pass  away  so  rapidly  perhaps 
that  the  state  of  consciousness  appropriate  to  them  is 
not  produced.  It  is  the  aim,  therefore,  of  a  good  training 
in  observation  and  reasoning  to  compel  attention  to  differ- 
ences in  order  that  they  may  make  a  fit  impression  and 
be  registered,  and  thus  to  prevent  too  hasty  generalization. 
Whatever  the  organic  process  in  the  brain,  it  takes 
place,  like  the  organic  action  of  other  elements  of  the 
body,  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  consciousness.  We 
are  not  aware  how  our  general  and  abstract  ideas  are 
formed ;  the  due  material  is  consciously  supplied,  and 
there  is  an  unconscious  elaboration  of  the  result  Mental 
development  thus  represents  a  sort  of  nutrition  and 
organization ;  or,  as  Milton  aptly  says  of  the  opinions 
of  good  men  that  they  are  truth  in  the  making,  so  we 
may  truly  say  of  the  formation  of  our  general  and 
complex  ideas  that  it  is  mind  in  the  making.  When 


3*  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  individual  brain  is  a  well-constituted  one,  and  has 
been  duly  cultivated,  the  results  of  its  latent  activity, 
rising  into  consciousness  suddenly,  sometimes  seem  like 
intuitions ;  they  are  strange  and  startling,  as  the  products 
of  a  dream  ofttimes  are,  to  the  person  who  has  actually 
produced  them.  Hence  it  was  no  extravagant  fancy  in 
Plato  to  look  upon  them  as  reminiscences  of  a  previous 
higher  existence.  His  brain  was  a  brain  of  the  highest 
order,  and  the  results  of  its  unconscious  activity,  as  they 
flashed  into  consciousness,  would  show  like  revelations, 
and  might  well  seem  intuitions  of  a  higher  life  quite 
beyond  the  reach  of  present  will. 

But  the  process  of  unconscious  mental  elaboration 
is  sufficiently  illustrated  in  daily  experience.  The  in- 
stantaneous judgments  of  the  distance,  the  position,  the 
size,  the  figure  of  objects,  which  accompany  our  visual 
sensations,  are  not  consciously  made,  nor  are  they  put 
in  logical  form ;  in  fact,  all  the  labours  of  philosophers 
hitherto  have  not  been  sufficient  to  discover  and  ex- 
plain the  processes  by  which  we  acquire  them — to  set 
forth  explicitly  the  premisses,  the  reasoning,  and  the  con- 
clusions which  are  implicit  in  them.  In  dreams  a  person 
may  compose  vigorously  and  fluently,  or  speak  eloquently, 
who  can  do  nothing  of  the  sort  when  awake;  in  the 
first  stages  of  acute  mania  there  is  sometimes  exhibited 
a  wit,  a  liveliness  of  imagination,  a  fluency  of  speech, 
of  which  the  person  is  utterly  incapable  when  he  is  in 
sound  health ;  schoolboys  know  how  much  a  night's  rest 
improves  their  knowledge  of  a  lesson  which  they  have 
been  learning  before  going  to  bed;  great  writers  or 
great  artists,  as  is  well  known,  have  been  truly  astonished 
at  their  own  creations,  when  they  have  calmly  examined 
them  after  the  enthusiasm  of  invention  was  past,  and 
have  been  unable  to  conceive  how  they  contrived  to 
produce  them ;  and  to  the  unconscious  action  of  the 
brain  is  owing,  most  probably,  that  occasional  sudden 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        33 

consciousness,  which  almost  every  one  at  some  time 
or  other  has  had,  of  having  been  before  in  exactly  the 
same  circumstances  as  those  which  are  then  present,  or 
having  said  or  done  exactly  the  same  thing,  though  such 
a  previous  exact  experience  was  impossible ;  but  the 
action  of  the  brain  in  the  assimilation  of  events  here  mo- 
mentarily anticipates  consciousness,  which,  when  aroused, 
finds  a  familiarity  in  them.  The  same  conviction  is 
sometimes  felt  in  dreams.  The  impression  is  momentary, 
vanishing  in  the  instant  of  feeling  it,  and  cannot  be 
recalled  by  any  voluntary  effort,  nor  can  it  be  adequately 
described  in  words.  Inventions  seem  sometimes,  even 
to  the  discoverers,  to  be  matters  of  accident  and  good 
fortune,  who,  however,  have  not  failed  to  deserve  the 
accident  of  good  fortune  by  long  labour  and  training 
in  inquiry ;  the  most  voracious  plagiarist  is  commonly 
the  most  unconscious ;  the  best  thoughts  of  an  author 
are  always  the  unwilled  thoughts  which  surprise  himself; 
and  the  poet  under  the  inspiration  of  creative  activity 
is,  so  far  as  consciousness  is  concerned,  being  dictated 
to.  If  we  reflect,  we  shall  see  that  it  must  be  so ;  the 
products  of  creative  activity,  in  so  far  as  they  transcend 
the  hitherto  experienced,  are  unknown  to  the  creator 
himself  before  they  come  forth,  and  cannot  therefore 
be  the  result  of  a  definite  act  of  his  will ;  for  to  an 
act  of  will  a  conception  of  the  result  is  necessary. 
"  The  character,"  says  Jean  Paul,  speaking  of  the  poet's 
work,  "must  appear  living  before  you,  and  you  must 
hear  it,  not  merely  see  it;  it  must,  as  takes  place  in 
dreams,  dictate  to  you,  not  you  to  it ;  and  so  much 
so  that  in  the  quiet  hour  before  you  might  perhaps  be 
able  to  foretell  the  what  but  not  the  h<nv.  A  poet  who 
must  reflect  whether  in  a  given  case  he  shall  make  a 
character  say  yes  or  no — to  the  devil  with  him :  he  is 
only  a  stupid  corpse."  * 

*  Aest/tetik. 


34  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

If  an  inherited  excellence  of  brain  has  conferred  upon 
the  individual  great  inborn  capacity,  it  is  well;  but  if 
he  has  not  such  heritage,  then  no  amount  of  conscious 
effort  will  completely  compensate  for  the  defect  As 
in  the  germ  of  the  higher  animal  there  is  the  potentiality 
of  many  kinds  of  tissue,  while  in  the  germ  of  the  lower 
animal  there  is  only  the  potentiality  of  a  few  kinds  of 
tissue ;  so  in  the  good  brain  of  a  happily  endowed  man 
there  is  the  potentiality  of  great  assimilation  and  of  great 
and  varied  development,  while  in  the  man  of  low  mental 
endowment  there  is  only  the  potentiality  of  a  scanty 
assimilation  and  of  small  development  But  it  is  ridicu- 
lous to  suppose  that  the  man  of  genius  is  ever  a  fountain 
of  self-generating  energy ;  whosoever  expends  much  in 
productive  activity  must  take  much  in  by  appropriation ; 
whence  comes  so  much  of  the  truth  which  there  is  in 
the  observation  that  genius  is  a  genius  for  industry. 
They  do  most  by  genius  who  would  do  most  without 
it  To  believe  that  any  one,  how  great  soever  his  natural 
genius,  can  pour  forth  with  spontaneous  ease  the  results 
of  great  productive  activity  without  corresponding  labour 
in  appropriation,  is  no  less  absurd  than  it  would  be  to 
believe  that  the  acorn  can  grow  into  the  mighty  monarch 
of  the  forest  without  air  and  light  and  without  the  kindly 
influence  of  the  soil. 

It  has  been  previously  said  that  mental  function  does 
not  necessarily  imply  consciousness,  and,  again,  that 
mental  organization  does  not  necessarily  involve  mental 
function  ;  it  may  now  be  affirmed  that  the  most  import- 
ant part  of  mental  action,  the  essential  process  on  which 
thinking  depends,  is  unconscious  mental,  or,  if  the 
word  be  liked  better,  cerebral  activity.  We  repeat,  then, 
the  question  :  how  can  self-consciousness  suffice  to  furnish 
the  facts  of  a  true  mental  science  ?  Assuredly  it  can 
give  no  account  of  its  own  origin.  It  is  not  a  constant 
state,  but  rather  a  process  of  becoming  conscious ;  only 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        35 

when  the  organic  conditions  of  nerve  element  reach  a 
certain  height  of  energy  or  have  a  certain  duration  do 
they  produce  consciousness ;  and  it  is  plain  that  they, 
thus  lying  beneath  consciousness,  are  inaccessible  to 
self-observation. 

6.  The  brain  not  only  receives  impressions  uncon- 
sciously, registers  impressions  without  the  co-operation 
of  consciousness,  elaborates  material  unconsciously,  calls 
latent  residua  again  into  activity  without  consciousness, 
but  it  responds  also  as  an  organ  of  organic  life  to  the 
internal  stimuli  which  it  receives  unconsciously  from 
other  organs  of  the  body.  As  the  central  organ  to  which 
the  various  organic  stimuli  of  a  complex  whole  pass, 
and  where  they  are  duly  co-ordinated,  it  must  needs 
have  most  important  and  intimate  sympathies  with  the 
other  parts  of  the  harmonious  system ;  and  a  regular 
quiet  activity,  of  which  we  only  become  occasionally 
conscious  in  its  abnormal  results,  does  prevail  as  the 
consequence  and  expression  of  these  organic  sympathies. 
On  the  whole,  this  activity  is  even  of  more  consequence 
in  determining  the  tone  of  our  feeling,  or  of  our  disposi- 
tion, and  the  character  of  our  impulses,  than  that  which 
follows  impressions  received  from  the  external  world  ; 
when  disturbed  in  a  painful  way,  it  becomes  the  occasion 
of  that  feeling  of  gloom  or  discomfort  which  does  not 
itself  give  rise  to  anything  more  than  an  indefinite  antici- 
pation of  coming  affliction,  but  which  clouds  ideas  that 
arise,  rendering  them  obscure,  unfaithfully  representative, 
and  painful.  The  rapidity  and  success  of  conception, 
and  the  reaction  of  one  conception  upon  another,  are 
much  affected  by  the  state  of  this  active  but  unconscious 
cerebral  life :  the  poet  is  compelled  to  wait  for  the 
moment  of  inspiration ;  and  the  thinker,  after  great  but 
fruitless  pains,  must  often  tarry  until  a  more  favourable 
disposition  of  mind.  We  are  brought  into  direct  relations 
with  external  nature,  perceiving  and  modifying  it,  by 


36  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

means  of  our  intellectual  and  active  functions ;  they  are, 
as  cerebral  functions,  in  close  connection  with  the 
mechanisms  of  sensation  and  motion,  of  which  their 
anatomical  substrata  may  be  regarded  as  continuations. 
But  mind  is  constituted  by  affective  as  well  as  by  intel- 
lectual and  active  functions,  in  every  mental  act  there 
being  a  consensus  of  these  three  classes  of  functions; 
and  the  affective  functions  of  the  brain,  which  are  pro- 
bably in  close  relations  with  the  internal  organs  of  the 
body,  are  the  foundation  of  the  emotions  and  impulses, 
and  give  force,  purpose,  and  unity  to  our  intellectual 
and  active  life. 

In  insanity  the  influence  of  this  sympathetic  organic 
activity  is  most  marked ;  for  it  then  happens  that  the 
morbid  state  of  some  internal  organ  becomes  the  basis 
of  a  painful  but  formless  feeling  of  profound  depression, 
which  ultimately  condenses  into  some  definite  delusion. 
In  dreams  its  influence  is  no  less  manifest ;  for  he  who 
has  gone  to  sleep  with  a  disturbance  of  some  internal 
organ  may  find  the  character  of  his  dreams  to  be 
determined  by  the  feeling  of  the  oppression  of  self  of 
which  the  organic  trouble  is  the  cause :  he  is  thwarted, 
he  is  afflicted,  he  is  at  school  again,  he  is  under  sentence 
of  death,  he  is  attending  at  his  own  funeral ;  in  some 
way  or  other  his  personality  is  oppressed,  and  the 
dream-drama  takes  its  character  from  the  affective  tone. 
Most  plainly  of  all,  however,  does  the  familiar  influence 
of  the  sexual  organs  upon  the  mind  witness  to  this 
operation  ;  and  it  was  no  wild  flight  of  "  that  noted  liar 
— fancy  "  in  Schlegel,  but  a  truly  grounded  creation  of 
the  imagination,  that  he  represented  a  pregnant  woman 
as  being  visited  every  night  by  a  beautiful  child,  which 
gently  raised  her  eyelids  and  looked  silently  at  her,  but 
which  disappeared  for  ever  after  delivery.*  Whatever 

*  "  In  Schlegels — viel  zu  wenig  erkanntem — Florentin  sieht  eine 
Schwangere  immer  ein  schones  Wimderkind,  das  mit  ihr  Nachts  die 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        37 

then  may  be  thought  of  the  theory  of  Bichat,  who  located 
the  passions  in  the  organs  of  organic  life,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  he  therein  evinced  a  just  recognition  of  the 
importance  of  that  unconscious  cerebral  activity  which  is 
the  expression  of  the  organic  sympathies  of  the  brain. 
Mind  is  without  doubt  the  direct  function  of  brain,  but 
is  not  less  certainly  a  function  of  the  whole  organism 
indirectly;  for  in  the  brain  every  organic  function  is 
represented  directly  or  indirectly. 

In  dealing  with  unconscious  mental  activity,  and  with 
mind  in  a  statical  condition,  it  has  been  a  necessity  to 
speak  of  brain  and  cerebral  action,  where  I  would  will- 
ingly, to  avoid  offence  that  might  be  taken  thereat,  have 
spoken,  had  it  been  possible,  of  mind  and  mental  action ; 
but  it  was  impossible,  if  one  was  to  be  truthful  and  intel- 
ligible, to  do  otherwise.  When  the  important  influence 
of  the  brain,  as  an  organ  of  organic  life,  on  mental  life 
comes  to  be  considered,  there  are  no  words  available  for 
expressing  the  phenomena  in  the  language  of  the  received 
psychology,  which,  though  it  admits  the  brain  to  be  the 
organ  of  mind,  takes  no  notice  whatever  of  it  as  an 
organ.  It  may  perhaps  be  maintained  that  it  is  im- 
proper and  indeed  absurd  to  speak  of  mind  except 
when  speaking  of  states  of  consciousness.  This  of  course 
I  do  not  admit,  holding  that  there  is  a  vast  amount  of 
mental  function  which  goes  on  unconsciously.  But  if  it 
be  asserted  that  I  am  not  justified  in  speaking  of  statical 
or  inactive  mind,  mind  being  actual  energy  or  function, 
I  have  nothing  to  reply;  the  reader  must  understand 
thereby  the  mental  organization  or  that  organization  of 
brain  which  ministers  to  mental  function,  and  pardon 
the  incorrect  expression,  because  of  the  difficulties  with 
which  the  metaphysical  conception  of  mind,  infecting 

Augcn  aufschlagt,  ihr  stumm  entgegen  lauft  u.  s.  w.  und  welches 
unter  der  Entbindung  auf  immer  verschwindeU" — JEAN  PAUL, 
Aathetik. 


1 3  S'  I  tj  j) 


38  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  common  language  of  psychology,  oppresses  a  writer. 
Psychologists,  like  Descartes,  define  mind  to  be  the 
thinking  or  conscious  substance,  that  is,  the  sub- 
stance the  functions  of  which  are  thought,  feeling,  and 
will.  Those  who  do  not  admit  any  such  spiritual  sub- 
stance, but  hold  that  mind  is  a  general  term  embracing 
these  functions,  the  substance  beneath  which  is  brain, 
must  sometimes  use  the  words  brain  and  mind  loosely  as 
meaning  the  same  thing — namely,  the  substance,  unless 
they  are  prepared  to  repudiate  the  language  of  pyscho- 
logy,  to  go  their  own  way  using  their  own  terms,  and  to 
abandon  all  attempts  to  reconcile  the  truth  which  there 
is  in  the  old  doctrines  of  pyschology  with  the  new  truth 
which  is  made  known  by  the  discoveries  of  modern 
physiology.*  Mind,  used  in  the  sense  of  substance  or 

*  The  doctrine  of  latent  modifications  of  mind — of  unconscious 
acts  and  affections  of  mind — which  Sir  \V.  Hamilton  declared  to  be 
"established  beyond  all  rational  doubt,"  has  no  difficulties  to  face 
before  it  is  accepted,  if  we  distinctly  apprehend  the  fact  that  the 
organ  is  brain  and  the  function  mind,  and  view  the  doctrine  by  the 
light  of  our  knowledge  of  other  nervous  functions.  But  it  would 
be  quite  impossible  to  get  forward  if  one  made  this  explanation  on 
eveiy  occasion  on  which  it  was  necessary  to  take  account  of  psy- 
chological doctrines  implying  a  mental  essence.  When  the  psycho- 
logist declares  that  perception  is  not  in  the  brain,  but  in  the 
"  unknown  essence  mind,"  he  affirms  both  what  is  true  and  what 
is  untrue.  It  is  true  that  perception  is  not  strictly  in  the  brain, 
because  perception  is  function,  and  "function  cannot  justly  be  said 
to  be  in  the  organ  ;  unquestionably  function  is  potential  in  organ, 
but  when  it  has  become  actual  in  consequence  of  material  changes 
in  the  organ,  it  is  energy  which  has  gone  forth  from  the  organ,  and 
cannot  any  longer  be  said  properly  to  be  in  it  Perception  being 
part  of  the  function — mind,  may  therefore  be  said  to  be  in  mind. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  organ  and  its  changes  by  self-conscious- 
ness ;  the  knowledge  which  we  get  through  consciousness  is  neces- 
sarily of  function ;  wherefore  it  is  so  far  true  that  we  only  know 
mental  states  in  consciousness.  But  it  is  untrue,  or  at  any  rate  it  is  a 
gratuitous  assumption,  for  which  there  is  no  warrant  in  facts,  to 
affirm  that  consciousness  is  the  function  of  an  unknown  esser.ee— 


t]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        39 

essence,  and  brain,  used  in  the  sense  of  organ  of  mental 
function,  are  at  bottom  two  names  for  the  same  sub- 
stance ;  the  former  word  being  the  symbol  by  which  it  is 
denoted  through  the  inner  sense  of  consciousness,  the 
latter  word  the  symbol  by  which  the  outer  senses  denote 
it ;  in  like  manner,  such  psychological  terms  as  idea  and 
will  are  to  the  inner  sense  symbols  of  cerebral  functions 
which  are  known  to  the  outer  senses  as  physiological  ner- 
vous currents  or  excito-motor  processes  in  the  cerebral 
convolutions.  He  who  should  insist  on  keeping  these 
different  symbols  of  the  same  substance  or  process 
punctiliously  distinct  on  every  occasion,  and  should 
scrupulously  shrink  from  ever  translating  one  into  terms 
of  the  other,  makes  an  abrupt  and  arbitrary  division  in 
knowledge  where  there  is  continuity  in  nature,  building 
up  two  distinct  sciences  out  of  a  study  of  the  same 
subject-matter,  and  acts  very  much  as  a  person  would  do 
who  should  refuse  to  recognize  an  object,  when  it  is  per- 
ceived by  or  described  in  terms  of  one  sense,  to  be  the 
same  object  as  it  is  when  perceived  by  or  described  in 
terms  of  another  sense  ;  who  should  insist,  for  example, 
on  giving  a  different  name  to  the  orange  which  he  per- 
ceives by  touch  from  that  which  he  gives  to  the  orange 

mind,  and  that  it  cannot  be  a  function  of  brain.  Consciousness 
cannot  possibly  tell  us  what  is  and  what  is  not  function  of  brain, 
and  when  it  undertakes  to  do  so,  goes  entirely  beyond  its  province, 
and  acts  as  absurdly  as  a  man  in  a  dark  room  in  which  he  had 
never  been  before  would  do,  if  he  were  to  undertake  to  declare 
positively  from  his  own  observation  what  was  and  what  was  not  in 
the  room.  It  is  not  true,  as  might  be  said,  that  physiology  makes  a 
like  gross  mistake  when  it  undertakes  to  declare  that  which  is  known 
only  in  consciousness,  to  be  a  function  of  brain,  for  although  it  cannot 
witness  to  what  passes  in  consciousness  only,  an  individual  can  by 
its  method  of  observation  and  experiment  produce  and  observe 
variations  in  his  consciousness  corresponding  with  artificially  pro- 
duced variations  of  brain-states,  and  can  justly  infer  similar  cor- 
relative effects  from  similar  observations  made  by  him  upon  other 
persons. 


40  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

which  he  perceives  by  sight,  and  on  always  keeping  the 
perceptions  of  his  different  senses  punctiliously  distinct. 

Let  me  briefly  go  on  now  to  state  what  the  relations 
of  the  brain  as  a  bodily  organ  are. 

1.  The  brain  has,  as  previously  set  forth,  a  life  of  re- 
lation ;  which  may  be  properly  distinguished  into — (a)  a 
relation  with  external  nature  through  the  inlets   of  the 
senses  ;  and  (£)  a  relation  with  the  other  organs  of  the 
body  through  the  nervous  system  distributed  throughout 
the  body.     These  have  already  been  sufficiently  dwelt 
upon  here ;  they  will  receive  fuller  attention  afterwards. 

2.  But  the  brain  has  also  a  life  of  nutrition,  or,  if  I 
may  so  call  it,  a  vegetative  life.     In  this  its  true  organic 
life,  there  is  a  nutritive  assimilation  of  suitable  material 
from  the  blood  by  the  nerve  cell ;  a  restoration  of  the 
statical  equilibrium  being  thereby  effected  after  each  dis- 
play of  energy.     The  extent  of  the  nutritive  repair  and 
the  mould  which  it  takes  must  plainly  be  determined  by 
the  extent  and  form  of  the  change  or  waste  of  matter 
which  has  been  the  condition  of  the  display  of  function  : 
the  material  change  or  waste  in  the  nerve  cell  or  circuit, 
which  the  activity  of  an  idea  implies,  is  replaced  from  the 
blood  according  to  the  mould  or  pattern  of  the  particu- 
lar idea;   statical   functional  potentiality  thus  following 
through  the  agency  of  nutritive  attraction  upon  the  waste 
of  active  idea  through  functional  repulsion.     The  ele- 
ments of  the  nerve  cell  or  circuit  grow  to  the  form  in 
which  it  energizes.     Whatever  be  the  intimate  molecular 
process,   it  is   certain   that    the    functional   disposition 
which  previous  function  produces  is  effected  by  nutri- 
tion, that  it  requires  a  rich  supply  of  blood,  such  as 
the  brain  is    known    to   have,  and    that    it  cannot  be 
effected  if  the  supply  of  blood  is  cut  off.     This  organic 
process  of   repair   is    not    usually    attended    by  con- 
sciousness, and  yet  it  may  obtrude  itself  into  conscious- 
ness :    as  the  function   of  any  organ,  which  proceeds, 


:.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.       41 

when  all  is  well,  without  exciting  any  sensation,  does, 
under  conditions  of  disorder,  give  rise  to  unusual  sensa- 
tion or  to  actual  pain ;  so  the  organic  life  of  the  brain, 
which  usually  passes  peaceably  without  exciting  con- 
sciousness, may  under  certain  conditions  thrust  itself 
forward  into  consciousness  and  produce  anomalous 
effects.  When  this  happens,  the  abnormal  effect  is  not 
manifest  in  sensation,  for  the  hemispheres  of  the  brain, 
as  physiologists  well  know,  are  not  sensitive  in  that 
sense ;  but  it  is  displayed  in  the  involuntary  appearance 
of  emotional  ideas  in  consciousness,  and  in  consequent 
confusion  of  thought ;  the  statical  potentiality  becomes 
energy,  not  through  the  usual  train  of  association,  but 
by  reason  of  the  abnormal  stimulus  from  the  inner  life. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  presence  of  alcohol  or  of  some  other 
such  foreign  agent  in  the  blood  will  excite  into  activity 
ideas  which  lie  out  of  the  usual  path  of  association, 
which  the  utmost  tension  of  consciousness  would  fail  to 
arouse,  and  which  the  will  cannot  repress  nor  control 
Thus  it  is  that  in  some  forms  of  insanity  the  irruption 
of  a  vivid  idea  into  consciousness,  which  may  reach  such 
an  intensity  of  energy  as  to  become  an  uncontrollable  im- 
pulse, is  attended  with  or  preceded  by  an  active  deter- 
mination of  blood  to  the  brain,  the  head  becoming 
suddenly  hot  and  the  feet  as  suddenly  cold.  Whosoever 
will  be  at  the  pains  of  attending  to  his  own  daily  ex- 
perience will  find  that  ideas  frequently  arise  into  con- 
sciousness without  any  apparent  relation  to  those 
previously  active;  without,  in  fact,  any  possibility  of 
explaining,  quoad  consciousness,  why  and  whence  they 
come.  (?) 

To  what  has  been  before  said  of  unconscious  mental 
function  this  more  may  now  be  added — that  the  deep 
basis  of  all  mental  function  lies  in  the  organic  life  of  the 
brain,  the  characteristic  of  which  in  health  is  that  it  pro- 
ceeds without  consciousness.  He  whose  brain  makes 


*2  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

him  conscious  that  he  has  a  brain  is  not  well,  but  ill ; 
and  thought  that  is  conscious  of  itself  is  not  natural  and 
healthy  thought.  How  little  competent,  then,  is  con- 
sciousness to  supply  the  facts  of  an  inductive  science  of 
mind  1  Pneumatology  was  at  one  time  subdivided  into 
theology,  demonology,  and  psychology ;  all  three  resting 
on  the  evidence  of  the  inner  witness.  Demonology  has 
taken  its  place  in  the  history  of  human  error  and  super- 
stition ;  theology  is  confessedly  now  best  supported  by 
those  who  strive  to  ascend  inductively  from  nature's  law 
up  to  nature's  God ;  and  psychology,  shorn  of  its  former 
transcendental  glories,  stays  its  fall  by  appropriating  the 
discoveries  of  physiology  and  by  translating  them  into 
its  still  semi-metaphysical  phraseology,  preserving  only  in 
its  nomenclature  the  shadow  of  its  ancient  authority  and 
state.  On  what  foundation  can  a  science  of  mind  rest 
safely,  save  on  the  faithful  observation  of  all  available 
instances,  whether  psychical  or  physiological  ? 

Why,  however,  it  will  naturally  be  asked,  repudiate 
and  disparage  introspective  psychology,  now  that  it 
evinces  a  disposition  to  abandon  its  exclusive  mode  of 
procedure  and  to  profit  by  the  discoveries  of  physiology  ? 
Because  the  union,  as  desired  by  it,  is  an  unnatural  and  un- 
hallowed union,  which  can  only  issue  in  abortions  or  give 
birth  to  monsters  ;  not  otherwise  than  as  Ixion,  designing 
impiously  to  embrace  Juno,  had  intercourse  with  the 
clouds  and  begat  centaurs.  It  is  not  a  cursory  perusal  of 
physiological  text-books,  and  a  superficial  acquaintance 
with  the  nature  and  functions  of  the  nervous  system, 
which  will  put  meaning  into  the  vague  and  abstract  lan- 
guage of  psychology;  that  would  simply  be  to  subject 
physiology  to  the  tortures  of  Mezentius — to  stifle  the 
living  in  the  embraces  of  the  dead ;  but  it  is  a  sound 
general  knowledge  of  the  whole  domain  of  organization, 
at  the  head  of  which  stands  the  nervous  system,  and  the 
final  achievement  or  perfect  consummation  of  which  is 


I.]   THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.   43 

mind,  that  is  indispensably  pre-requisite  to  the  formation 
of  fundamentally  true  conceptions  of  mental  phenomena 
on  a  physiological  basis.  The  processes  most  nearly  re- 
sembling mental  processes  are  those  of  life,  for  mind  is 
the  function  of  the  highest  and  most  complex  vital  struc- 
ture ;  it  is  the  most  complex  and  special  form  of  life 
which  we  have  to  do  with ;  wherefore  the  study  of  vital 
processes  may  be  justly  declared  to  be  the  necessary 
foundation  of  the  scientific  study  of  mental  phenomena. 
The  question  between  modern  physiology  and  the  old 
pyschology  is  not  a  question  of  eclectic  appropriation 
of  the  discoveries  of  the  former  by  the  latter,  but  a 
fundamental  question  of  method  of  study. 

But  when  our  conceptions  have  been  vitally  informed 
by  physiological  knowledge,  it  will  be  found  a  hard  matter 
to  express  them  adequately  and  exactly  in  the  terms  of 
pyschology.  One  conviction  cannot  fail  to  be  brought 
home  to  those  who  have  pursued  the  physiological  study 
of  mind — that  it  would  have  been  well  if  the  inquirer, 
after  rising  step  by  step  from  the  investigation  of  life  in 
its  lowest  forms  to  that  of  its  highest  and  most  complex 
manifestations,  could  have  entered  upon  the  study  of 
mental  phenomena  without  being  hampered  by  any  phi- 
losophical theories  concerning  their  nature,  and  could 
have  described  them  in  terms  which  were  free  from  any 
previous  metaphysical  meanings.  For  the  terms  of  psy- 
chology have  these  faults — first,  they  are  vague  and 
obscure ;  and,  secondly,  they  often  imply  false  theories. 
Used  at  first  to  denote  external  things,  before  there 
was  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  such  external  things 
as  vital  processes  are,  they  were  borrowed  and  used 
in  a  sort  of  figurative  sense  to  express  internal  states, 
and  have  now  become  so  abstract,  and  been  so  de- 
praved by  their  divorce  from  nature,  as  to  be  almost 
empty  of  real  meaning.  Secondly,  there  is  hardly  a 
single  term  which  does  not  imply  a  theory,  and  a  theory 


44  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

which  is  mostly  either  inadequate  or  false :  under- 
standing, will,  idea,  mind,  are  all  terms  which  involve 
psychological  theories,  and  cannot  easily  be  divested 
of  them.  Indeed  it  is  not  possible  to  write  a  sentence 
concerning  our  highest  mental  functions  in  terms  of 
psychology  without  implying,  if  the  word  have  any 
meaning  at  all,  entities  which  are  merely  objectified 
abstractions.  Moreover,  this  also  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  for  it  aggravates  our  difficulties — that  a  word  is 
not  merely  a  definite  symbol  of  something,  but  a  centre 
also  of  various  associations  which  affect  essentially  its 
meaning;  use  it  then  as  carefully  as  we  may  in  its 
psychological  sense,  we  cannot  detach  these  associations 
from  its  meaning,  and  in  spite  of  ourselves  are  driven 
to  raise  a  metaphysical  haze.* 

Such  are  the  charges  against  self-consciousness  whereon 
is  founded  the  conclusion  as  to  its  incompetence ;  they 
show  that  he  who  thinks  to  illuminate  the  whole  range 
and  depth  of  mental  function  by  the  light  of  his  own 

*  Another  consequence  is  that  those  who,  being  familiar  with 
psychological  analysis  and  ignorant  of  physiology,  go  to  work  to 
criticise  the  physiological  exposition  of  mental  phenomena,  often 
fail  entirely  to  realise  the  meaning  of  that  which  they  criticise  ;  the 
words  do  not  convey  any  physiological  associations  to  their  minds, 
while  at  the  same  time  they  arouse  the  familiar  psychological  associa- 
tions ;  the  result  being  that  such  critics  go  round  and  round  in  a  circle 
grinding  psychological  wind  without  really  touching  the  essential 
facts.  They  might  do  worse  than  take  the  advice  which  a  mystic 
like  Schopenhauer  gives  them  : — •"  I  pray  you  do  not  write  on 
physiology  in  its  relations  to  psychology,  without  having  digested 
Cabanis  and  Bichat  in  succum  et  sanguinem ;  in  return  you  may 
leave  many  German  scribblers  unread.  At  best  the  study  of 
psychology  is  vain,  for  there  is  no  Psyche  ;  men  cannot  be  studied 
alone,  but  in  connection  with  the  world — microkosmus  and  macro- 
kosmus  combined — as  I  have  done.  And  test  yourself  whether  you 
really  possess  and  comprehend  physiology,  which  presupposes  a 
knowledge  of  anatomy  and  chemistry." — ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER, 
fits  Life  and  his  Philosophy,  by  Helen  Zimmem,  p.  24. 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        45 

consciousness  is  not  unlike  one  who  should  go  about  to 
illuminate  the  universe  with  a  rushlight.  A  reflection  on 
the  true  nature  of  consciousness  will  surely  tend  to  con- 
firm that  opinion.  Whoever  endeavours  faithfully  and 
firmly  to  obtain  a  definite  idea  of  what  is  meant  by 
consciousness,  will  find  it  nowise  so  easy  a  matter  as  the 
frequent  and  ready  use  of  the  word  might  imply.  Meta- 
physicians, faithful  to  the  vagueness  of  their  ideas,  and 
definite  only  in  individual  assumption,  are  by  no  means 
agreed  in  the  meaning  which  they  attach  to  it;  and 
it  sometimes  happens  that  the  same  metaphysician  uses 
the  word  in  two  or  three  different  senses  in  different 
parts  of  his  book :  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  for  example,  uses  it 
at  one  time  as  synonymous  with  mind,  at  another  time  as 
synonymous  with  knowledge,  and  at  another  time  to  ex- 
press a  condition  of  mental  activity.  That  there  should 
be  so  little  certainty  about  that  upon  which  their  philo- 
sophy fundamentally  rests  must  be  allowed  to  be  no 
small  misfortune  to  the  metaphysicians. 

What  consciousness  is  will  appear  better  if  its  relations 
be  closely  examined  without  prejudice.  It  will  then  be 
seen  that  it  is  not  separable  from  knowledge ;  that  it 
exists  only  as  a  part  of  the  concrete  mental  act ;  that  it 
has  no  more  power  of  withdrawing  from  the  particular 
phenomenon,  and  of  taking  full  and  fair  observation  of 
it,  than  a  boy  has  of  jumping  over  his  own  shadow. 
Consciousness  is  not  a  faculty  or  substance,  but  a  quality 
or  attribute  of  the  concrete  mental  act.  There  is  no  con- 
sciousness without  something  of  which  one  is  conscious, 
no  abstract  consciousness  without  contents ;  and  it  may 
exist  in  different  degrees  of  intensity,  or  it  may  be  absent 
altogether.  In  so  far  as  there  is  consciousness,  there  is 
certainly  mental  activity  ;  but  it  is  not  true  that  in  so  far 
as  there  is  mental  activity  there  is  consciousness ;  it  is 
only  with  a  certain  intensity  of  representation  or  con- 
ception that  consciousness  appears.  What  else,  then,  is 


t6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  so-called  interrogation  of  consciousness  but  a  self- 
revelation  of  the  particular  mental  state  whose  character 
it  must  needs  share  ?  When  the  mental  state  is  past,  it 
is  known,  not  by  direct  consciousness,  but  by  memory  ; 
and  the  introspective  observation  of  mental  sequences  by 
memory  is  assuredly  subject  to  as  many  errors  as  the 
external  observation  of  physical  sequences  by  the  senses. 
Consciousness  can  never  be  a  valid  and  unprejudiced 
witness;  for  although  it  testifies  to  the  existence  of  a  par- 
ticular mental  modification,  yet  when  that  modification 
has  anything  of  a  morbid  character,  consciousness,  which 
is  a  part  of  it,  is  necessarily  affected  by  the  taint  and 
is  morbid  also.  Accordingly,  the  lunatic  appeals  to  the 
evidence  of  his  own  consciousness  for  the  truth  of  his 
hallucination  or  delusion,  and  insists  that  he  has  as  sure 
evidence  of  its  reality  as  he  has  of  the  argument  of  any 
one  who  may  try  to  convince  him  of  his  error.  And  is 
he  not  right  from  a  subjective  standpoint  ?  To  one  who 
has  vertigo  the  world  turns  round.  A  man  may  easily 
be  conscious  of  free  will  when,  isolating  the  particular 
mental  act,  he  cuts  himself  off  from  the  consideration 
of  the  causes  which  have  preceded  it  and  on  which  it 
depends.  "There  is  no  force,"  says  Leibnitz,  "in  the 
reason  alleged  by  Descartes  to  prove  the  independence 
of  our  free  actions  by  a  pretended  lively  internal  senti- 
ment. It  is  as  if  the  needle  should  take  pleasure  in 
turning  to  the  north ;  for  it  would  suppose  that  it  turned 
independently  of  any  other  cause,  not  perceiving  the 
insensible  motions  of  the  magnetic  matter."*  Is  it  not 
supremely  ridiculous  that,  while  we  cannot  trust  con- 
sciousness in  so  simple  a  matter  as  whether  we  are  hot 
or  cold,  we  should  be  content  to  rely  entirely  on  its  evi- 
dence in  the  complex  phenomena  of  our  highest  mental 
activity?  The  truth  is  that  what  has  very  often  hap- 

*  Essats  de  Thiodicte,  Pt.  I.      Spinoza  uses  a  similar  illustration 
of  the  moving  stone. 


L]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.       47 

pened  before  has  happened  here  :  the  quality  or  attribute 
has  been  abstracted  from  the  concrete,  and  the  abstrac- 
tion converted  into  an  entity  :  the  attribute,  conscious- 
ness, has  miraculously  got  rid  of  its  substance,  and  then 
with  a  wonderful  assurance  assumed  the  office  of  com- 
menting and  passing  judgment,  from  a  higher  region  of 
being,  upon  the  nature  of  that  whereof  it  is  actually  a 
function.  Descartes  was  in  this  case  the  clever  architect, 
and  his  success  has  fully  justified  his  art:  while  the 
metaphysical  stage  of  human  development  lasts,  his 
work  will  doubtless  stand. 

That  the  subjective  method — the  method  of  interro- 
gating self-consciousness — is  not  adequate  to  the  con- 
struction of  a  true  mental  science,  has  now  seemingly 
been  sufficiently  established.  This  is  not  to  say  that  it 
is  worthless ;  for  when  not  strained  beyond  its  capabili- 
ties, its  results  must,  in  the  hands  of  competent  men,  be 
as  useful  as  they  are  indispensable.  We  can  investigate 
the  properties  of  water  without  knowing  its  composition  ; 
in  like  manner,  we  can  observe  the  associations  and 
sequences  of  mental  states  without  knowing  their  phy- 
sical antecedents.  Moreover,  when  we  have  discovered 
by  objective  inquiry  the  physical  antecedents,  we  must 
still  depend  upon  the  help  of  subjective  observation  in 
order  to  establish  the  exact  sequences  of  the  mental 
states,  which  we  only  know  by  introspection,  to  the  physi- 
cal states  which  we  observe  and  make  experiments  upon. 
D'Alembert  compares  Locke  to  Newton,  and  makes  it  a 
special  praise  to  him  that  he  was  content  to  descend 
within,  and  that,  after  having  contemplated  himself  for  a 
long  while,  he  presented  in  his  "  Essay "  the  mirror  in 
which  he  had  seen  himself;  "  in  a  word,  he  reduced 
psychology  to  that  which  it  should  be — the  experimental 
physics  of  the  mind."  But  it  was  not  altogether  because 
of  this  method,  but  in  some  degree  in  spite  of  it,  that 
Locke  was  greatly  successful ;  it  was  because  he  possessed 


43  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

a  powerful  and  well-balanced  mind,  the  direct  utterances 
of  which  he  sincerely  expressed,  that  the  results  which 
he  obtained,  in  whatever  nomenclature  they  may  be 
clothed,  are  and  always  will  be  valuable ;  they  are  the 
self-revelations  of  an  excellently  constituted  and  well- 
trained  mind.  The  insufficiency  of  the  method  used  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  others  adopting  it,  but  wanting 
his  sound  sense,  directly  contradicted  him  at  the  time, 
and  do  so  still.  Furthermore,  Locke  did  not  confine 
himself  to  the  interrogation  of  his  own  consciousness ; 
for  he  introduced  the  practice — for  which  Cousin  was  so 
angry  with  him — of  referring  to  savages  and  children. 
And  one  may  take  leave  to  suggest  that  the  most  valuable 
part  of  Locke's  psychology,  that  which  has  been  a  lasting 
addition  to  knowledge,  really  was  the  result  of  the  em- 
ployment of  the  inductive  or  rather  objective  method ;  for 
psychology  cannot  be  truly  inductive  unless  it  is  studied 
objectively.  Nay,  more :  if  any  one  will  be  at  the  pains  to 
examine  candidly  the  history  of  the  development  of  psy- 
chology up  to  its  present  stage,  he  may  be  surprised  to 
find  how  much  the  important  acquisitions  of  new  truths 
and  the  corrections  of  old  errors  have  been  due,  not  to 
the  interrogation  of  self-consciousness,  but  to  external 
observation,  though  it  was  not  recognised  as  a  systematic 
method.  Not  the  least  valuable,  though  a  hitherto  little 
valued,  part  of  the  psychology  of  Descartes  is  that  in 
which  he  treats  of  the  automatic  functions  of  the  lower 
animals,  anticipating  in  some  important  particulars  the 
modern  doctrine  of  reflex  action.  The  past  history  of 
psychology — its  instinctive  progress,  so  to  speak — no  less 
than  the  consideration  of  its  present  state,  proves  the 
necessity  of  admitting  the  objective  method. 

That  which  a  just  reflection  teaches  incontestably,  the 
present  state  of  physiology  illustrates  practically.  Though 
very  imperfect  as  a  science,  physiology  has  made  sufficient 
progress  to  prove  that  no  psychology  can  endure  except 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        49 

it  be  based  upon  its  investigations.  Let  it  not,  more- 
over, be  forgotten,  as  it  is  so  apt  to  be,  that  there  is  a 
continuity  throughout  nature,  and  that  the  divisions  in 
our  knowledge  are  artificial;  that  they  should  be  ac- 
cepted and  used  rather,  as  Bacon  says,  "  for  lines  to 
mark  or  distinguish,  than  sections  to  divide  and  sepa- 
rate; in  order  that  solution  of  continuity  in  sciences 
may  always  be  avoided."*  Not  the  smallest  atom  which 
floats  in  the  sunbeam,  nor  the  minutest  molecule  which 
vibrates  within  the  microcosm  of  an  organic  cell,  but  is 
bound  as  a  part  of  the  mysterious  whole  in  an  inextrica- 
ble harmony  with  the  laws  by  which  planets  move  in 
their  appointed  orbits  and  with  the  laws  which  govern  the 
marvellous  creations  of  genius.  Above  all  things  it  is 
now  necessary  that  the  absolute  and  unholy  barrier  set 
up  between  psychical  and  physical  nature  be  broken 
down,  and  that  a  just  conception  of  mind  be  formed, 
founded  on  a  faithful  recognition  of  all  those  phenomena 
of  nature  which  lead  by  imperceptible  gradations  up  to 
this  its  highest  evolution.  Happily  the  beneficial  change 
is  being  gradually  effected,  and  ignorant  prejudice  or 
offended  self-love  in  vain  opposes  a  progress  in  know- 
ledge which  reflects  the  course  of  progress  in  nature : 
the  stars  in  their  courses  fight  for  such  truth,  and  its 
angry  adversary  might  as  well  hope  to  blow  out  with  his 
pernicious  breath  the  all-inspiring  light  of  the  sun  as  to 
extinguish  its  ever-waxing  splendour. 

No  one  pretends  that  physiology  can,  for  many  years 
to  come,  furnish  the  complete  data  of  a  positive  mental 
science  :  all  that  it  can  at  present  do — and  that  is  not  a 
small  service — is  to  overthrow  the  data  of  a  false 
psychology.  It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  to  point  to  the  ex- 
tent of  our  ignorance,  and  to  maintain  that  physiology 
never  will  lay  securely  the  foundations  of  a  mental 
science,  just  as  it  was  easy  to  say,  before  the  invention  of 
*  De  Attgmentis  Scientiarum,  B.  IV. 


50  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  telescope,  that  the  ways  of  the  planets  could  never 
be  traced  and  calculated.  The  confident  dogmatist  in 
this  matter  might  well  learn  caution  from  an  instructive 
example  of  the  rash  error  of  a  greater  philosopher  than 
he  can  claim  or  hope  to  be  : — "  It  is  the  absurdity  of 
these  opinions,"  said  Bacon,  "that  has  driven  men  to 
the  diurnal  motion  of  the  earth ;  which,  I  am  convinced, 
is  most  false"*  What  should  fairly  and  honestly  be 
weighed  is,  that  mental  organization  is  the  last,  the 
highest,  the  consummate  evolution  of  nature,  and  that, 
therefore,  it  must  be  the  last,  the  most  complex,  and 
most  difficult  object  of  human  study.  There  are  really 
no  grounds  for  expecting  a  positive  science  of  mind  at 
present ;  for  to  its  establishment  the  completion  of  the 
other  sciences  is  necessary ;  and,  as  is  well  known,  it  is 
only  lately  that  the  metaphysical  spirit  has  been  got  rid 
of  in  astronomy,  physics,  and  chemistry,  and  that  these 
sciences,  after  more  than  two  thousand  years  of  idle  and 
shifting  fancies,  have  attained  to  certain  principles.  Still 
more  recently  has  physiology  emerged  from  the  fog,  and 
this  for  obvious  reasons :  in  the  first  place  it  is  absolutely 
dependent  upon  the  physical  and  chemical  sciences,  and 
must,  therefore,  wait  for  the  progress  of  them ;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  its  close  relations  to  psychology,  when 
it  is  concerned  with  the  functions  of  the  brain,  have 
kept  it  under  the  spell  of  the  metaphysical  spirit. 
That,  therefore,  which  should  be  in  this  matter  is  that 
which  is,  and  instead  of  being  a  cause  of  despair,  is  a 
ground  of  hope. 

But  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  the  physiological 
method  deals  only  with  one  (I.)  division  of  the  matter 
to  which  the  objective  method  is  to  be  applied ;  there 
are  other  divisions  not  less  valuable  : — 

II.  The  study  of  the  plan  of  development  of  mind,  as 
exhibited  in  the  animal,  the  barbarian,  and  the  infant, 
*  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum^  B.  III. 


I.]    THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.    51 

furnishes  results  of  the  greatest  value,  and  is  as  essential 
to  the  construction  of  a  true  mental  science  as  the  study 
of  its  development  confessedly  is  to  a  full  knowledge  of 
the  bodily  organism.  By  that  means  we  get  at  the  deep 
and  true  relations  of  phenomena,  and  are  enabled  to 
correct  the  erroneous  inferences  of  a  superficial  observa« 
tion ;  by  examination  of  the  barbarian,  for  example,  we 
observe  phenomena  in  the  simple  which,  even  when  most 
simple,  are  still  complex  enough ;  we  eliminate  also 
the  hypocrisy  which  is  the  result  of  the  social  condition, 
and  which  is  apt  to  mislead  us  in  the  civilized  individual. 
For  information  concerning  the  most  distant  epochs  of 
human  development — those  which  are  prehistorical — 
our  resources  are  not  great ;  we  make  shift  with  an  ex- 
amination of  the  flint  and  bronze  instruments  and  other 
records  of  art  v;hich  have  been  discovered  by  modern 
research,  and  with  a  study  of  the  formation  and  develop- 
ment of  languages.  In  the  language  are  embodied 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  a  period,  and  from  it  we 
are  able  to  form  reasonable  conjectures  concerning  the 
social  state  and  the  beliefs  thereof.  For  this  purpose  the 
study  of  myths  also  has  been  found  most  useful :  they 
reveal  mental  states  in  which  the  anthropomorphic  in- 
terpretation of  nature  was  habitual,  and  carried  to  the 
extremes t  pitch, — a  mode  of  interpretation  of  which 
we  have  still  a  survival  in  the  masculine  and  feminine 
nouns  of  objects,  such  as  sun  and  moon,  in  some  mo- 
dern languages.  In  his  language,  as  also  in  his  nature, 
man  is  the  heir  of  the  mental  and  moral  labours  of  his 
most  distant  ancestors  :  it  embodies,  as  his  nature  does, 
the  accumulated  acquisitions  of  successive  generations 
of  men. 

III.  The  study  of  the  degeneration  of  mind,  as  exhi- 
bited in  the  different  forms  of  idiocy  and  insanity,  is 
indispensable  as  it  is  invaluable.  So  we  avail  ourselves 
of  the  experiments  provided  by  nature,  and  bring  our 


5»  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

generalizations  to  a  most  searching  test.  Hitherto  the 
phenomena  of  insanity  have  been  entirely  ignored  by 
psychologists  and  grievously  misinterpreted  by  the  vulgar, 
because  interpreted  by  the  false  conclusions  of  a  sub- 
jective psychology.  Had  not  such  material  facts  as 
the  revelations  of  consciousness  in  dreams  and  in 
delirium  been  constantly  neglected  by  those  who  pro- 
fessed to  be  inductive  pyschologists,  truer  generali- 
zations must  perforce  have  been  formed  ere  this,  and 
fewer  irresponsible  lunatics  would  have  been  executed 
as  responsible  criminals.  Why  those  who  put  so  much 
faith  in  the  subjective  method  do  reject  such  a  large 
and  important  collection  of  instances  as  dreams  and 
madmen  furnish,  they  have  never  thought  proper  to  ex- 
plain. Another  promising  but  strangely  neglected  field 
of  inquiry  is  a  study  of  criminals.  The  time  will  come, 
ought  to  have  come  now,  when  prisons  shall  be  used  for 
the  systematic  investigation  of  the  antecedents,  and  for 
the  clinical  study  of  the  varieties,  of  the  criminal  nature, 
just  as  asylums  are  used  for  the  clinical  study  of  diseased 
minds,  hospitals  for  the  study  of  diseased  bodies.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  half  the  books  that  have  been 
written  on  moral  philosophy  would  be  worth  one  good 
book  by  an  earnest  and  industrious  inquirer  who  should 
undertake  the  scientific  study  of  the  inmates  of  a  single 
prison. 

IV.  The  study  of  biography  and  of  autobiography, 
which  has  already  been  described  as  the  application  of 
positive  science  to  human  life,  will  plainly  afford  essential 
aid  in  the  formation  of  a  positive  science  of  mind.  Thus 
we  trace  the  development  of  the  mind  in  the  individual 
as  affected  by  hereditary  influences,  education,  and  the 
circumstances  of  life.  Concerning  autobiographies,  how- 
ever, it  will  not  be  amiss  to  bear  in  mind  an  observation 
made  by  Feuchtersleben,  that  "  they  are  only  of  value  to 
the  competent  judge,  because  we  must  see  in  them  not 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        53 

so  much  what  they  relate  as  what,  by  their  manner  of 
relation,  is  undesignedly  betrayed." 

V.  The  study  of  the  progress  or  regress  of  the  human 
mind,  as  exhibited  in  history,  most  difficult  as  the  task  is, 
cannot  be  neglected  by  one  who  wishes  to  be  thoroughly 
equipped  for  the  arduous  work  of  constructing  a  posi- 
tive mental  science.  The  unhappy  tendencies  which 
lead  to  individual  error  and  degeneration  are  those  which 
on  a  national  scale  conduct  peoples  to  destruction ;  and 
the  nisus  of  an  epoch  is  summed  up  in  the  biography  of 
its  great  man.*  Freed  from  the  many  disturbing  con- 
ditions which  interfere  so  much  with  his  observation  of 
the  individual,  the  philosopher  may  perhaps  discover  in 
history  the  laws  of  human  progress  in  their  generality 
and  simplicity,  as  Newton  discovered,  in  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  the  law  for  which  he  would  have 
looked  in  vain  had  he  watched  the  fall  of  every  apple  in 
Europe.  Moreover,  in  the  language,  literature,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  in  the  political,  social  and  religious  institu- 
tions of  mankind,  there  are  important  materials  for  the 
construction  of  a  science  of  mind.  As  Comte  has  set 
forth  with  great  elaboration,  the  individual  is  a  social  unit, 
and  cannot  be  comprehended  independently  of  the  social 
medium  in  which  he  lives;  just  as  it  is  necessary  to  study 
his  bodily  organism  in  its  relations  with  surrounding 
physical  nature,  so  it  is  necessary  to  study  his  mental 
functions  in  their  relations  with  the  human  nature  of 
which  he  is  a  unit.  No  one  who  has  given  the  least 
thought  to  the  process  of  human  evolution  can  be  sur- 
prised that  the  prophet  of  a  new  religion,  or  a  social  re- 
former, or  a  philosopher  does  not  appear  among  a  tribe 
of  Red  Indians  j  when  a  man  of  superior  mental  endow- 

*  "When  nature  has  work  to  be  done,"  says  Emerson,  "she 
creates  a  genius  to  do  it.  Follow  the  great  man,  and  you  shall  see 
what  the  world  has  at  heart  in  these  ages.  There  is  no  omen  like 
that." 

4 


54  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ments  does  appear  among  them  he  becomes  a  great 
hunter,  or  a  great  warrior,  or  a  great  orator  in  council ; 
for  he  applies  all  his  energies  to  the  work  in  which  it  is 
the  tribal  ambition  to  excel,  and  the  tribal  joy  to  succeed. 
The  history  of  mankind  is  a  continuation  of  the  natural 
history  of  the  universe,  and  must  have  discoverable  laws  ; 
but  while  the  course  of  cosmic  evolution  as  far  as  mind 
is  completed,  and  known  in  part,  its  continued  evolution 
in  mind  is  far  from  complete,  and  is  yet  hardly  known  at 
all  However,  as  the  astronomer  can,  from  observation 
of  a  portion  of  a  planet's  course,  draw  the  path  of  its 
entire  orbit,  so  may  it  be  possible  in  the  time  to  come, 
from  observation  of  the  course  of  the  past  years  of 
human  development,  to  discover  the  laws  of  future 
development. 

May  we  not  then  truly  say  that  he  only  is  the  true 
psychologist  who,  occupied  with  the  observation  of  the 
whole  of  human  nature,  avails  himself  not  alone  of  every 
means  which  science  affords  for  the  investigation  of 
the  bodily  conditions  which  assuredly  underlie  every  dis- 
play of  function,  conscious  or  unconscious,  but  also  of 
every  help,  subjective  or  objective,  which  is  furnished  by 
the  mental  manifestations  of  animal  and  of  man,  whether 
undeveloped,  degenerate,  or  cultivated  ?  Here,  as  every- 
where else  in  nature,  the  student  must  deliberately  apply 
himself  to  a  close  communion  with  the  external,  must 
intend  his  mind  to  the  realities  which  surround  him,  and 
thus,  by  patient  internal  adjustment  to  outward  relations, 
gradually  evolve  into  conscious  development  those  inner 
truths  which  are  the  unavoidable  expressions  of  the  har- 
mony between  himself  and  nature.  By  diligent  colliga- 
tion of  facts,  patient  observation  of  their  relations,  and 
careful  consilience  of  inductions,  he  will  attain  to  sound 
generalizations  in  this  as  in  other  departments  of  nature  ; 
in  no  other  way  can  he  do  so.  Of  old  it  was  the  fashion 
to  try  to  explain  nature  from  a  very  incomplete  knowledge 


I.]       THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        55 

of  man  ;  but  it  is  the  certain  tendency  of  advancing 
science  to  explain  man  on  the  basis  of  a  perfecting  know- 
ledge of  nature. 

Having  fairly  admitted  a  method,  it  behoves  us  to  take 
heed  that  we  are  not  too  exclusive  in  its  application.  To 
this  onesidedness  there  is  a  strong  inclination  :  even  in 
the  investigation  of  physical  nature  men  often  now  write 
of  induction  as  Bacon  himself  never  wrote  of  it.  They 
would  repudiate  as  impious  all  use  of  theory  in  scientific 
inquiries,  forgetful  that  not  a  single  question  can  be  put 
to  nature  without  some  theory,  and  that  in  the  interro- 
gation of  nature  no  answer  is  ever  volunteered  ;  the 
definite  answer  is  not  vouchsafed  unless  the  definite 
question  be  put,  or  the  definite  experiment  made,  as 
Bacon  says,  ad  intentioncm  ejus  quod  queritur.  It  might 
seem,  from  the  usual  fashion  of  speech,  that  the  function 
of  the  mind  was  merely  that  of  a  polished  and  passive 
mirror,  in  which  natural  phenomena  should  be  allowed 
simply  to  reflect  themselves  ;  whereas  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness is  a  developmental  result  of  the  relation  be- 
tween mind  and  the  impression,  of  the  subject  and  object. 
What  Bacon  strove  so  earnestly  to  abolish  was  the  method 
of  systematically  looking  into  the  mind  and,  by  torture 
of  self-consciousness,  drawing  thence  empty  ideas,  as  the 
spider  forms  a  web  out  of  its  own  substance, — that  ill- 
starred  divorce  between  mind  and  nature  which  had  been 
cultivated  by  the  Schoolmen  as  a  method.  What  he 
wished,  on  the  other  hand,  to  establish  was  a  happy 
marriage  between  mind  and  matter,  between  subject  and 
object;  to  prevent  the  "mind  being  withdrawn  from 
things  farther  than  was  necessary  to  bring  into  a  har- 
monious conjunction  the  ideas  and  the  impressions  made 
upon  the  senses."  *  For,  as  he  says,  the  testimony  and 

*  "  Nos  vero  intellectum  longius  a  rebus  non  abstrahimus  quam 
ut  rerum  imagines  et  radii  (ut  in  sensu  fit)  coire  possint."  (Proleg. 
Instaurat.  Afagn.)  This  passage,  as  usually  rendered,  is  not  Intel- 


56  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

information  of  the  senses  have  reference  always  to  man, 
not  to  the  universe — to  man's  limited  capacities  of  appre- 

ligible  ;  the  translation  in  the  text,  if  not  literally  exact,  evidently, 
as  the  context  proves,  expresses  Bacon's  true  meaning.  He  had 
objected  to  all  before  him  that  some  had  wrongly  regarded  the 
sense  as  the  measure  of  things,  while  others,  equally  wrongly,  "after 
having  only  a  little  while  turned  their  eyes  upon  things,  and  in- 
stances, and  experience,  then  straightway,  as  if  invention  were 
nothing  more  than  a  certain  process  of  excogitation,  have  fallen,  as 
it  were,  to  invoke  their  own  spirits  to  utter  oracles  to  them.  But 
we,"  he  goes  on,  "modestly  and  perseveringly  keeping  ourselves 
conversant  among  things,  never  withdraw  our  understanding,"  &c. 
Mr.  Spedding,  in  his  admirable  edition  of  Bacon's  works,  translates 
the  passage  thus  : — "I,  on  the  contrary,  withdraw  my  intellect  from 
them  no  further  than  may  suffice  to  let  the  images  and  rays  of 
natural  objects  meet  in  a  point,  as  they  do  in  the  sense  of  vision." 
According  to  this  interpretation — if  there  really  is  any  meaning  in  it 
— the  images  and  rays  of  objects  express  the  same  thing.  Mr. 
Wood's  translation,  in  Mr.  Montagu's  edition,  is : — "  We  abstract 
our  understanding  no  further  from  them  than  is  necessary  to  prevent 
the  confusion  of  the  images  of  things  with  their  radiation,  a  confu- 
sion similar  to  that  we  experience  by  our  senses."  This  is  worse 
still ;  ut  possint  coire  means,  certainly,  "  that  they  come  together," 
not  "  that  they  may  not  mingle  or  may  be  prevented  from  mingling." 
After  all,  the  95th  Aphorism  furnishes  the  clearest  and  surest  com- 
mentary on  the  passage — "  Those  who  have  treated  the  sciences 
were  either  empirics  or  rationalists.  The  empirics,  like  ants,  only 
lay  up  stores  and  use  them  ;  the  rationalists,  like  spiders,  spin  webs 
out  of  themselves  ;  but  the  bee  takes  a  middle  course,  gathering  her 
matter  from  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  garden,  and  digesting  and 
preparing  it  by  her  native  powers.  In  like  manner,  that  is  the  true 
office  and  work  of  philosophy  which,  not  trusting  too  much  to  the 
faculties  of  the  mind,  does  not  lay  up  the  matter,  afforded  by  natural 
history  and  mechanical  experience,  entire  or  unfashioned  in  the 
memory,  but  treasures  it  after  being  first  elaborated  and  digested 
in  the  understanding.  And,  therefore,  we  have  a  good  ground 
of  hope,  from  the  close  and  strict  union  of  the  experimental  and 
rational  faculty,  which  have  hitherto  been  united."  In  the  very 
place  where  the  obscure  passage  occurs,  he  says,  after  speaking  of 
the  inauspicious  divorce  usually  made  between  mind  and  nature  — 
"The  explanation  of  which  things,  and  of  the  true  relation  between 
the  nature  of  things  and  the  nature  ?f  the  mind,  is  as  ihe  strewing 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        57 

hension,  not  to  the  infinite  capacities  of  nature  to  be 
apprehended  ;  and  it  is  a  great  error  to  assert  that  the 
sense  is  the  measure  of  things.  But  by  his  method  of 
effecting,  as  completely  as  possible,  a  reconciliation  be- 
tween the  subjective  and  objective,  he  hoped  to  have 
"  established  for  ever  a  true  and  lawful  marriage  between 
the  empirical  and  the  rational  faculty,  the  unkind  and  ill- 
starred  divorce  and  separation  of  which  has  thrown  into 
confusion  all  the  affairs  of  the  human  family."  The  mind 
that  is  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  nature,  in  an  intimate 
sympathy  with  the  course  of  events,  is  strong  with  the 
strength  of  nature,  and  is  developed  by  its  force :  it  is  the 
identification  of  subject  and  object, which  men  have  so  long 
and  so  mischievously  laboured  to  divorce.  For  there  are 
not  two  worlds — a  world  of  nature  and  a  world  of  human 
consciousness  standing  over  against  one  another,  but  one 
world  of  nature  whereof  human  consciousness  is  an 
evolution  and,  may  we  not  say,  a  consummation.  The 
aim  and  labour  of  man  should  be  to  identify  himself  with 
nature  by  intimate  communion  therewith,  not  to  place 
himself  in  a  position  of  separation  and  antagonism  under 
the  delusion  of  a  monstrous  manie  de  grander* 

A  contemplation  of  the  earlier  stages  of  human  de- 
velopment as  exhibited  by  the  savages,  certainly  con- 
strains the  admission  that  the  conscious  or  designed  co- 
operation of  the  mind  in  the  adaptation  of  man  to 
external  nature  was  not  great.  The  fact  is,  however,  in 
exact  conformity  with  what  has  already  been  asserted 
concerning  the  nature  and  domain  of  consciousness. 
Assuredly  it  is  not  consciousness,  the  natural  result  of  a 
due  development, which  gives  the  impulse  to  development ; 

and  decoration  of  the  bridal  chamber  of  the  Mind  and  Universe, 
the  Divine  Goodness  assisting ;  out  of  which  marriage  let  us  hope 
(and  this  be  the  prayer  of  the  bridal  song)  there  may  spring  helps 
to  man,  and  a  line  and  nee  of  inventions  that  may  in  some  degree 
subdue  and  overcome  the  necessities  and  miseries  of  humanity." 


58  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

conscious  method  has  had  no  greater  part  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  moral  sense  in  the  later  epochs  than  it  probably 
had  in  the  discovery  of  fire  and  its  uses  in  the  earlier 
epochs  of  human  evolution.  Whence  comes  the  im- 
pulse of  evolution  on  earth  we  know  not ;  but  certainly 
from  a  source  that  is  past  finding  out  by  our  finite  appre- 
hension— from  the  primeval  central  Power  which  hurled 
the  planets  on  their  courses,  and  holds  the  lasting  orbs  of 
heaven  in  their  just  poise  and  movement  In  virtue  of 
the  fundamental  impulse  of  its  being,  mankind  struggles, 
at  first  blindly,  towards  a  knowledge  of  and  adaptation  to 
external  nature,  until  that  which  has  been  insensibly  ac- 
quired through  generations  becomes  an  inborn  addition 
to  the  power  of  the  mind,  and  that  which  was  uncon- 
sciously done  becomes  conscious  method. 

It  were  well,  then,  that  this  idea  took  deep  and  firm 
root  in  our  thoughts :  that  the  development  of  mind, 
both  in  the  individual  and  through  generations,  is  a  gradual 
process  of  organization — a  process  in  which  Nature  is 
undergoing  her  latest  and  most  consummate  development 
through  man.  In  reality  we  do  not  fail  virtually  to  recog- 
nise this  in  the  case  of  language,  the  organic  growth  of 
which,  as  we  scientifically  trace  it,  is  the  result  of  the 
unseen  organization  of  thought  that  lies  beneath,  and 
alone  gives  it  meaning.  His  own  consciousness,  faith- 
fully interpreted,  might  suffice  to  reveal  to  each  one  the 
gradual  maturing  or  becoming  through  which  a  process 
of  thought  continually  goes  in  his  mind.  So  has  it  been 
with  mankind :  at  first  there  was  an  instinctive  or  pure 
organic  development,  the  human  race  struggled  on,  as 
the  child  does,  without  being  conscious  of  its  ego  ;  then, 
as  it  reached  a  certain  stage  of  development,  it  became, 
as  the  youth  does,  exceedingly  self-conscious,  and  an  ex- 
travagant and  unhealthy  metaphysical  subjectivity  was 
the  expression  of  an  undue  self-feeling ;  and  finally,  as 
the  happily  developing  individual  passes  from  an  undue 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        59 

subjectivity  to  a  calm  objective  manner  of  viewing  things, 
so  Bacon  may  be  said  to  mark  the  epoch  of  a  correspond- 
ing happy  change  in  the  development  of  mankind.  Let 
us  entirely  get  rid,  however,  of  the  notion  that  the  objec- 
tive study  of  nature  means  merely  the  sensory  perception 
of  it ;  we  see,  not  with  the  eye,  but  through  it ;  and  to 
any  one  who  is  above  the  level  of  the  animal  the  sun  is 
not  a  bright  disc  of  fire  about  the  size  of  a  big  cheese, 
but  an  immense  orb  rushing  through  space  with  its 
attendant  planetary  system  at  the  rate  of  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  miles  a  day.  Now,  such  are  the  won- 
drous harmony,  connection,  and  continuity  pervading 
that  mysterious  whole  which  we  call  Nature,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  get  a  just  and  clear  idea  of  one  pure  circle  of 
her  works  without  that  idea  becoming  most  useful  in 
flashing  a  light  into  obscure  and  unknown  regions,  and  in 
thus  aiding  the  conscious  establishment  of  a  further  har- 
mony of  adaptation  between  man  and  nature.*  Hence 
we  anticipate  observation  by  far-reaching  deductions, 
foreseeing  facts  that  are  abstractly  included  in  the  pure 
circle  of  a  true  general  intuition,  and  which,  when  ob- 
served, are  the  verification  of  our  deduction.  The  brilliant 
insight  or  intuition  of  the  man  of  genius,  who  so  often 
anticipates  the  slow  result  of  systematic  investigation, 
witnesses  with  singular  force  to  that  truth.  Far  wiser  than 
many  of  his  commentators  have  been,  Bacon  accordingly 
failed  not  to  appreciate  clearly  the  exceeding  value  of 
idea  in  the  interpretation  of  nature. 

But  if  the  due  co-operation  of  the  mind  is  necessary, 
if  the  harmony  of  subjective  and  objective  was  Bacon's 
real  method,  in  the  prosecution  of  physical  science,  how 
much  more  useful  must  the  just  union  of  the  empirical  and 
rational  faculties  be  in  the  study  of  mental  science ;  the 
task  then  being  to  apply  the  ideas  of  the  mind  to  the 

•  "Denn  woNaiur  im  reinenKreise  wallet  eryreifen  alle  Welten  sich." 

GOETHE,  Faust. 


60  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

interpretation  of  the  mind's  processes  of  activity.  It 
must  assuredly  be  allowed  that  the  light  of  one's  own 
train  of  thought  is  often  most  serviceable  in  interpreting 
the  mind  of  another  person ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
one  may  know  what  is  passing  therein  with  not  less  cer- 
tainty, sometimes  even  with  greater  certainty,  than  when 
it  is  actually  uttered.  In  order  to  be  successful  in  this 
sort  of  intuition,  not  only  good  natural  insight,  but  a 
large  experience  of  life  and  men,  is  most  necessary,  else 
the  most  grievous  mistakes  may  be  made ;  here,  as  else- 
where, power  is  acquired  by  intending  the  mind  to  exter- 
nal realities,  by  submitting  the  understanding  to  things. 
This  then  is  objective  observation ;  if  strictly  subjective, 
it  must  be  limited  to  the  revelations  of  self-consciousness. 
Plainly,  too,  this  objective  application  of  our  ideas  to  the 
interpretation  of  another  mind  is  a  very  different  matter 
from  the  deliberate  direction  of  consciousness  to  its  own 
states, — that  introspective  analysis  of  the  processes  of 
thought  whereby,  as  before  said,  the  natural  train  of 
ideas  being  interrupted  and  the  tension  of  a  particular 
activity  maintained,  an  artificial  state  of  mind  is  produced, 
and  a  tortured  self-consciousness,  like  an  individual  put 
to  the  torture,  makes  confessions  that  are  utterly  untrust- 
worthy, most  often  giving  the  exact  answer  which  the 
torture  was  applied  to  extract.  The  genuine  utterances 
of  his  inner  life,  or  the  sincere  and  direct  revelations 
of  the  man  of  great  natural  ability  and  good  training, 
are  the  highest  truths — but  the  contradictory  anatomical 
revelations  of  internal  analysis  by  the  professed  psy- 
chologists are  the  vainest  word  jugglings  with  which 
a  tenacious  perseverance  has  vexed  a  long-suffering 
world.  They  should  justly  be  opposed,  as  by  Bacon ; 
or  shunned,  as  by  Shakespeare ;  or  abhorred,  as  by 
Goethe: — <'Ich  habe  nie  an  Denken  gedacht."*  As 

*  Hicbei  bekenn'  ich    dass  mir  von  jeher   die  grosse  and  so 
bedeutend  klingende  Aufgabe  :  erkenne  dich  selbst,  immer  verdach- 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        Ci 

in  the  child  there  is  no  consciousness  of  the  ego,  so  in 
the  highest  development  of  humanity,  as  represented  by 
these  our  greatest,  a  similar  unconsciousness  of  the  ego 
seems  to  have  been  reached ;  and  the  individual,  in  inti- 
mate and  congenial  sympathy  with  nature,  carries  forward 
its  organic  evolution  with  a  child-like  unconsciousness 
and  a  child-like  success. 

To  prevent  misunderstanding,  let  me  say,  although 
what  has  gone  before  in  this  chapter  should  render  it  un- 
necessary, that  I  have  no  absurd  desire  to  repudiate  intro- 
spective observation  entirely  ;  I  aspire  only  to  see  it  de- 
throned from  the  exclusive  place  which  it  has  usurped, 
and  relegated  to  its  proper  place  in  the  study  of  mental 
science.  One  ought  perhaps  to  distinguish  systematically 
between  the  simple  revelations  of  mental  states  in  con- 
sciousness, which,  coming  from  a  well-trained  mind,  yield 
valuable  aid  to  other  methods  of  inquiry,  and  the  empty 
results  of  the  methodical  application  of  introspective 
.analysis  to  construct  a  self-sufficient  philosophy  of 
mind  without  regard  to  or  aid  from  other  methods. 
Everybody  can  perceive  that  feelings,  ideas,  volitions, 
are  known  through  self-consciousness,  and  have  only 
a  subjective  meaning.  And  although  they  may,  and 
no  doubt  do,  correspond  to  what,  I  suppose,  we  may 
call  objective  changes  in  the  nervous  system,  we  cannot 
know  them  by  objective  inquiry,  any  more  than  we  can 
know  the  material  changes  by  mental  introspection.  No 
observation  of  the  brain,  no  investigation  of  its  chemical 
activities,  gives  us  the  least  information  respecting  the 
states  of  feeling  that  are  connected  with  them ;  as  has 

tig  vorkam,  als  eine  List  geheim  verbiinder  Priester,  die  den 
menschen  durch  unerreichbare  Forderungen  venvirren,  und  von 
dcr  Thatigkeit  gegen  die  Aussenwelt  zu  einern  innern  falschen 
Beschaulickeit  verleiten  wollten.  Der  mensch  kennt  sich  sclbst,  in 
sofern  er  die  Welt  kennt,  die  er  nur  in  sich  und  sich  nor  in  ihr 
gewahr  wird.  Jeder  neue  Gegenstand,  wohl  beschaut,  schliesst  ein 
oeues  Organ  in  uns  au£ — GOETHE,  vol.  49-50. 


62  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

been  aptly  remarked,  it  is  certain  that  the  anatomist  and 
physiologist  might  pass  centuries  in  studying  the  brain 
and  nerves,  without  ever  suspecting  what  a  pleasure  or  a 
pain  is,  if  they  have  not  felt  both ;  even  vivisections  teach 
us  nothing  except  by  the  interpretation  which  we  give 
them  through  observation  of  our  own  mental  processes. 
Nevertheless,  it  would  be  rash  to  declare  that  the  energies 
which  in  consciousness  are  feelings,  ideas  and  volitions 
will  not  sometime  be  appreciable  and  even  measurable 
by  delicate  physical  instruments  which  may  yet  be  in- 
vented, not  otherwise  than  as  certain  phenomena  accom- 
panying conduction  along  a  nerve-track  are  now  appreci- 
able and  measurable  by  the  galvanometer.  The  question 
for  psychology  is  how  we  are  to  observe  in  detail,  and 
ascertain  definitely,  the  correspondences  between  the 
subjective  states  which  are  known  by  self-consciousness 
and  the  objective  changes  in  brain  to  which  they  run 
parallel,  and  which  we  believe  to  be  the  physical  condi- 
tions of  them.  In  the  same  way,  I  answer,  as  we  establish 
correspondences  in  physical  phenomena — by  observation 
and  experiment.  Our  aim  must  be  to  study  carefully  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  brains  of  the  lower  animals,  between 
the  brain  of  the  animal  and  the  human  brain,  and  between 
different  human  brains,  and  to  compare  the  observed 
differences  in  structural  development  with  the  carefully 
studied  differences  in  mental  functions ;  to  observe  what 
loss  or  modification  of  mental  function  in  an  animal 
follows  the  removal  or  the  experimental  modification  of 
a  particular  portion  of  brain;  and  to  take  advantage, 
for  the  same  purpose,  of  the  pathological  experiments 
upon  the  human  brain  which  are  made  for  us  by  disease 
and  by  accidental  injuries. 

But  granted,  it  may  be  said,  you  will  eventually  succeed 
in  establishing  an  exact  sequence  of  a  particular  mental 
state  to  a  particular  change  in  brain — nay,  perhaps,  of  all 
the  special  mental  states  to  their  special  cerebral  changes, 


i.J        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        63 

you  are  still  no  nearer  explaining  why  the  energy  which 
follows  the  cerebral  change  is  a  feeling,  or  an  idea,  or  a  voli- 
tion— why  it  becomes  conscious.  That  is  so,  no  doubt : 
but  at  the  same  time  we  are  no  worse  off  in  that  respect 
than  we  are  in  respect  of  other  natural  forces,  such  as  elec- 
tiicity  and  chemical  affinity,  and  the  changes  in  matter  to 
which  they  are  sequent;  all  of  which  sequences,  as  known 
to  us,  it  may  be  remarked,  are  only  states  of  conscious- 
ness. You  do  not  ask  us  to  explain  why  chemical  affinity 
or  electricity  is  what  it  is,  nor  demand  that  we  should  do 
more  than  establish  the  invariable  relation  between  matter 
and  force  :  why  then  make  such  an  unwarrantable  demand 
only  when  cerebral  organization  functions  as  conscious 
energy  ?  We  have  done  enough,  we  contend,  when  we 
have  established  invariable  sequence — when  we  have 
definitely  ascertained  in  respect  of  each  mental  function, 
that  a  particular  state  of  cerebral  matter  is  the  invariable 
condition  of  it — that  when  this  varies  it  varies,  and  when 
this  is  not  it  is  not ;  and  we  may  certainly  claim  the  right 
to  exult,  should  it  ever  come  to  pass,  as  it  may  well  be  it 
will,  that  we  succeed  in  appreciating  by  delicate  mechani- 
cal instruments  the  energies  which  appear  in  conscious- 
ness as  feelings,  ideas  and  volitions,  and  in  measuring 
the  variations  of  them.  The  true  method  of  psychology 
is  the  union  of  the  subjective  and  objective  methods,  or 
rather  the  rigorous  prosecution  of  the  objective  method 
interpreted  by  subjective  light.  This  is  the  happy 
bridal  union  from  which  we  may  expect  vigorous  off- 
spring. There  is  not  one  science  of  psychology,  another 
science  of  cerebral  physiology,  and  between  them  a 
science  of  physiological  psychology :  there  are  not 
three  sciences,  but  one  science — that  of  the  physiology 
of  the  nervous  system,  the  phenomena  whereof  have 
an  objective  and  a  subjective  aspect,  and  are  to  be 
studied  by  external  and  internal  observation.  Mind 
and  nature  are,  as  Aristotle  pointed  out  long  ago, 


64  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

really  two  sides  of  the  same  fact,  which  are  only  separ- 
able verbally. 

Before  concluding  this  chapter  it  may  be  well  distinctly 
to  affirm  a  truth  which  is  an  unwelcome  one,  because  it 
flatters  not  the  self-love  of  mankind ;  and  it  is  this,  that 
there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  the  gifted 
man  of  genius,  who  can  often  anticipate  the  slow  results 
of  systematic  investigation,  and  who  strikes  out  new  paths, 
and  the  common  herd  of  mortals,  who  must  plod  on  with 
patient  humility  in  the  old  tracks,  "  with  manifold  motions 
making  little  speed : "  it  is  the  difference  between  the 
butterfly  which  flies  and  feeds  on  honey  and  the  cater- 
pillar which  crawls  and  gorges  on  leaves.  Men,  ever 
eager  to  "pare  the  mountain  to  the  plain,"  will  not 
willingly  confess  this  ;  nevertheless  it  is  most  true.  Rules 
and  systems  are  necessary  for  the  ordinarily  endowed 
mortals,  whose  business  it  is  to  gather  together  and 
arrange  the  materials ;  the  genius,  who  is  the  architect, 
has,  like  nature,  an  unconscious  system  of  his  own.  It 
is  the  fate  of  its  nature,  and  no  demerit,  that  the  cater- 
pillar must  crawl :  it  is  the  fate  of  its  nature,  and  no 
merit,  that  the  butterfly  must  fly.  The  question,  so  much 
disputed,  of  the  relative  extent  of  applicability  of  the  so- 
called  inductive  and  deductive  methods,  often  resolves 
itself  into  a  question  as  to  what  manner  of  man  it  is  who 
is  to  use  them — whether  one  who  has  senses  only,  who 
has  eyes  and  sees  not,  or  one  who  has  senses  and  a  soul ; 
whether  one  who  can  only  collect  so-called  facts  of  obser- 
vation, or  one  who  can  bind  together  the  thousand  scat- 
tered facts  by  the  organizing  idea,  and  thus  guarantee 
them  to  be  facts.  Plato,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Humboldt, 
Bacon  too,  and,  in  truth,  all  men  who  have  had  anything 
of  inspiration  in  them,  were  not  mere  sense-machines  for 
registering  observations,  but  rather  instruments  on  which 
the  melody  of  nature,  like  sphere  music,  was  made  for 
the  benefit  and  delectation  of  such  as  have  ears  to  hear. 


r.]       THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        65 

That  some  so  virulently  declaim  against  theory  is  as 
though  the  eunuch  should  declaim  against  lechery :  it  is 
the  chastity  of  impotence. 

In  no  case,  however,  can  the  inductive  and  deductive 
methods  be  separated ;  and  it  would  be  a  great  error  to 
suppose  that  the  highest  genius  can  dispense  with  long 
and  patient  industry  in  observation.  The  well-endowed 
and  well-trained  natural  philosopher  is  pleased  when  a 
strange  and  novel  fact  presents  itself,  because  it  is  cal- 
culated to  arrest  the  routine  of  observation  and  reflection, 
and  to  set  him  to  work  on  a  new  path  to  bring  it  under 
known  laws  or  to  discover  the  new  law  of  which  it  is  a 
result;  accordingly  he  is  careful  not  to  pass  it  by,  but  ob- 
serves it  earnestly,  holding  to  it  tenaciously,  associates  or 
compares  it  with  other  facts  of  a  like  nature  which  have 
come  within  his  experience,  frames  a  theory  or  hypothe- 
sis concerning  it,  deduces  other  facts  which  must  be  if 
the  hypothesis  were  true,  and  finally  tests  the  deduction 
by  rigid  comparison  of  the  facts  inferred  with  the  results 
of  patient  observation  and  varied  experiment.  It  is 
probable  that  he  forms  many  erroneous  hypotheses,  and 
abandons  them  after  trial,  before  he  hits  upon  the  true 
one  which  he  verifies.  "  The  world  little  knows,"  wrote 
Faraday,  "  how  many  of  the  thoughts  and  theories  which 
have  passed  through  the  mind  of  a  scientific  investigator 
have  been  crushed  in  silence  and  secrecy  by  his  own 
severe  criticism  and  adverse  examination ;  that  in  the 
most  successful  instances  not  a  tenth  of  the  suggestions, 
the  hopes,  the  wishes,  the  preliminary  conclusions  have 
been  realized."  The  qualities  necessary  to  the  success- 
ful discoverer  appear  then  to  be  these  :  first,  an  impres- 
sionability to,  and  determined  observation  or  mental 
registration  of,  a  novel  phenomenon  :  secondly,  a  fruitful 
faculty  of  discerning  relations  of  identity  and  of  there- 
upon framing  hypotheses ;  and,  lastly,  persistent  industry 
in  following  out  the  consequences  of  an  hypothesis,  by 


66  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

foreseeing  its  results  and  devising  experiments  to  test 
and  verify  them.  Patient  observation  and  industry  may 
no  doubt  be  acquired  by  ordinary  training,  but  the 
faculty  of  detecting  identity  and  uniformity  in  different 
objects  and  events,  and  the  fruitful  imagination  which 
frames  hypotheses  and  devises  means  of  verification,  are 
not  within  the  reach  of  everybody  ;  they  are  more  or  less 
qualities  of  original  nature.  Each  generation  has  a 
common  heritage  of  ideas,  and  an  individual  mind  finds 
itself  in  a  certain  atmosphere  of  thought  which  it  reflects 
more  or  less  distinctly.  He  who  has  what  is  called 
genius  is  in  harmony  with  and  assimilates  the  best 
thought  of  his  own  epoch  and  of  preceding  epochs,  and 
carries  it  forward  to  a  higher  evolution.  An  age  which 
lacks  that  impulse  of  evolution  which  the  genius  em- 
bodies, is  apt  to  harden  into  obstructive  formula. 

So  rarely,  however,  does  nature  produce  one  of  these 
men  gifted  with  that  high  and  subtile  quality  called 
genius — being  scarce,  indeed,  equal  to  the  production  of 
one  in  a  century — and  so  self-sufficing  are  they  when 
they  do  appear,  that  we,  gratefully  accepting  them  as 
visits  of  angels,  or  much  as  Plato  accepted  his  super- 
celestial  ideas,  need  not  vainly  concern  ourselves  about 
their  manner  of  working.  It  is  not  by  such  anxious 
troubling  that  one  will  come ;  it  is  not  by  introspective 
prying  into  and  torture  of  its  own  self-consciousness  that 
mankind  evolves  the  genius ;  the  mature  result  of  its  un- 
conscious development  flows  at  due  time  into  conscious- 
ness with  a  grateful  surprise,  and  from  time  to  time  the 
slumbering  centuries  are  thus  awakened.  It  is  by  the 
patient  and  diligent  work  at  systematic  adaptation  to 
the  external  by  the  rank  and  file  of  mankind  ;  it  is  by 
the  conscientious  labour  of  each  one,  after  the  inductive 
method,  in  that  little  sphere  of  nature,  whether  psychical 
or  physical,  which  in  the  necessary  division  of  labour 
has  fallen  to  his  lot — that  a  condition  of  evolution  is 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.       67 

reached  at  which  the  genius  bursts  forth.  Tiresome, 
then,  as  the  minute  man  of  observation  may  sometimes 
seem  as  he  exults  over  his  scattered  facts  as  if  they  were 
final,  and  magnifies  his  molecules  into  mountains  as  if 
they  were  eternal,  it  is  well  that  he  should  thus  enthu- 
siastically esteem  his  work  ;  and  no  one  but  will  give  a 
patient  attention  as  he  reflects  how  indispensable  the 
humblest  unit  is  in  the  social  organism,  and  how  excel- 
lent a  spur  vanity  is  to  industry.  Not  unamusing,  though 
somewhat  saddening,  is  it,  however,  to  witness  the  pain- 
ful surprise  of  the  man  of  observation,  his  jealous  indig- 
nation and  clamorous  outcry,  when  the  result  at  which 
he  and  his  fellow-labourers  have  been  so  patiently,  though 
blindly,  working,  when  the  genius-product  of  the  cen- 
tury which  he  has  helped  to  create,  starts  into  life — 
when  the  metamorphosis  is  completed  and  the  cater- 
pillar has  become  a  butterfly  :  amusing,  because  the 
patient  worker  is  supremely  astonished  at  a  result  which, 
though  preparing,  he  nowise  foresaw;  saddening,  be- 
cause individually  he  is  annihilated,  and  all  the  toil  in 
which  he  spent  his  strength  is  swallowed  up  in  the  pro- 
duct which,  gathering  up  the  different  lines  of  investi- 
gation and  thought,  and  giving  to  them  a  unity  of 
development,  now  by  epigenesis  ensues.  We  perceive, 
then,  how  it  is  that  a  great  genius  cannot  come  save  at 
long  intervals,  as  the  tree  cannot  blossom  but  at  its  due 
season ;  and  how,  when  he  comes,  he  reaches  his  hand 
across  the  silent  years,  from  the  height  on  which  he 
stands,  to  the  great  ones  who  have  gone  before  him,  and 
are  similarly  lifted  up  on  high  as  lights  to  lighten  the 
paths  of  the  toiling  multitudes  in  the  valleys  and  on  the 
plains  below. 

But  why  should  any  one,  great  or  little,  fret  and  fume 
because  he  is  likely  soon  to  be  forgotten  ?  What  more 
is  the  individual  than  a  passing  phase  of  being ;  and 
what  matters  it  if  he  be  forgotten  in  life  or  death  ?  The 


58  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

work  which  he  has  done,  whether  it  has  been  good  or  bad, 
will  in  no  case  be  forgotten  of  the  universe.  It  were  an 
excellent  physic  to  vanity  for  a  man  to  consider  his 
littleness  in  relation  to  mankind ;  to  pass  thence  to  a 
consideration  of  himself  in  relation  to  the  world's  his- 
tory ;  and  to  complete  the  humbling  reflection  by  con- 
sidering himself  in  relation  to  the  universe.  The  genius 
himself,  as  individual,  is  after  all  of  but  little  account ; 
it  is  only  as  the  birth  of  the  travailing  centuries  that  he 
exists,  only  so  far  as  he  is  a  true  birth  of  them  and  ade- 
quately representative  that  he  is  of  value :  the  more 
individual  he  is,  the  more  transitory  is  his  fame;  the 
more  completely  representative  he  is,  the  less  original 
he  is.  When  he  is  immortal,  he  has  become  a  mere 
name  marking  an  epoch  of  thought,  and  no  longer  an 
individual.  What  is  the  fame  of  him  who  first  dis- 
covered fire  and  its  uses  ?  What  the  fame  of  him  who 
first  taught  men  to  plant  wheat :  an  invention  which  the 
ancient  Greeks  thought  too  much  for  human  wit,  and 
attributed,  as  we  do  the  generation  of  a  moral  sense,  to 
Divine  aid.  It  is  useful  to  label  a  discovery  with  a  name, 
in  order  to  mark  its  date  in  the  development  of  a  science ; 
but  it  is  not  one  man's,  it  is  many  men's.*  Whosoever, 
in  a  foolish  conceit  of  originality,  strains  after  novelty 
and  neglects  the  scattered  and  perhaps  obscure  labours 
of  others  who  have  preceded  him,  or  who  are  contem- 

*  Und  doch  ziehen  manchmal  gewisse  Gesinnnngen  und  Gedanken 
schon  in  der  Luft  umber,  so  dass  mehrere  sie  erfassen  konnen. 
Immanet  aer  sicut  anima  communis  quae  omnibus  pnesto  est  et  qui 
omnes  communicant  invicem.  Quapropter  multi  sagaces  spiritus 
ardentes  subito  ex  acre  presentiscunt  quod  cogitat  alter  homo.  Oder, 
urn  weniger  mystisch  zu  reden,  gewisse  Vorstellungen  werden  reif 
durch  eine  Zeitreihe.  Auch  in  verschiedenen  Garten  fallen  Friichte 
lu  gleichen  Zeit  von  Baume. — GOETHE. 

Viele  Gedanken  heben  sich  erst  aus  der  allgemeinen  Cultur  hervor 
wie  die  Bliithen  aus  den  griinen  Zweigen.  Zur  Rosenzeit  sieht  man 
Rosen  uberall  bluhen.—  GOETHE. 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        69 

poraneous  with  him  ;  whosoever,  over-careful  of  his  in- 
dividual fame,  cannot  carry  forward  his  own  evolution 
with  a  serene  indifference  to  neglect  or  censure,  but 
makes  puerile  demands  on  the  approbation  of  the  world 
— may  rest  content  that  he  is  not  a  complete  birth  of 
the  age,  but  more  or  less  an  abortive  monstrosity :  the 
more  extreme  he  is  as  a  monstrosity,  the  more  original 
must  he  needs  be.  It  is  a  strange  comedy  when  men 
contend  for  priority  in  discovery  so  eagerly  as  they  do, 
often  the  while  making  scanty  acknowledgment  of  what 
they  owe  to  the  past ;  what  would  they  say  if,  when  the 
time  of  flowering  had  come,  a  rosebud  were  to  call  all 
rose-trees  to  take  notice  that  it  was  the  first  to  blossom 
on  its  tree,  and  to  witness  the  great  wrong  that  was  done 
to  it  by  the  roses  which  confessed  not  that  they  had 
learnt  from  it  how  to  blossom  after  their  kind  ? 

Viewing  mental  development,  whether  in  the  indivi- 
dual or  in  the  race,  as  a  process  of  organization,  as  the 
consummate  display  of  nature's  organic  evolution,  and 
recognising,  as  we  must  do,  the  most  favourable  condi- 
tions of  such  evolution  to  be  the  most  intimate  harmony 
between  man  and  nature,  I  may  rightly  conclude,  so  far 
as  concerns  the  rule  of  a  conscious  method  of  inquiry, 
with  the  ancient  and  well-grounded  maxim — "  Learn  to 
know  thyself  in  nature,  that  so  thou  mayest  know  nature 
in  thyself."(8) 

NOTES. 

1  (/.  6). — "Insomuch  that  many  times  not  only  what  was  asserted 
once  is  asserted  still,  but  what  was  a  question  once  is  a  question 
still,  and  instead  of  being  resolved  by  discussion,  is  only  fixed  and 
fed." — BACON,  Proleg.  Inst.  Magn. 

*  (p.  18). — The  received  psychology  M.  Comte  calls  an  "illusory 
psychology,  which  is  the  last  phase  of  theology,"  and  says  that  it 
"  pretends  to  accomplish  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  the  human 
mind  by  contemplating  it  in  itself;  that  is,  by  separating  it  from 


70  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [ciur. 

causes  and  effects."  (Miss  Martineau's  Translation,  p.  n.)  Again, 
he  says  :  "In  order  to  observe,  your  intellect  must  pause  from 
activity  ;  yet  it  is  this  very  activity  that  you  want  to  obsreve.  If  you 
cannot  effect  the  pause,  you  cannot  observe  ;  if  you  do  effect  it, 
there  is  nothing  to  observe.  The  results  of  such  a  method  are  in 
proportion  to  its  absurdity."  (Ibid.  p.  II.) 

3  (/•  19).— "But  the  truth  is,  that  they  are  not  the  highest  in- 
stances which  give  the  best  or  securest  information,  as  is  expressed, 
not  inelegantly,  in  the   common  story  of  the  philosopher,  who, 
while  he  gazed  upon  the  stars,  fell  into  the  water  ;  for  if  he  had 
looked  down,  he  might  have  seen  the  stars  in  the  water,  but,  look- 
ing aloft,  he  could  not  see  the  water  in  the  stars." — De  Augment. 
Scient.  B.  ii. 

4  (/•  23)- — Individual  Psychology  Bacon  set  down  as  wanting  ;  he 
enforces  its  study,  "  so  that  we  may  have  a  scientific  and  accurate 
dissection  of  mind  and  characters,  and  the  secret  dispositions  of  par- 
ticular men  may  be  revealed,  and  that  from  the  knowledge  thereof 
better  rules  may  be  framed  for  the  treatment  of  the  mind." — De 
Augment.  Scient.  B.  vii. 

5  (/•  27). — Beneke  lays  it  down  as  a  fundamental  law  of  mental 
development  "dass  Alles  was  als  Akt  in  ihr  erzeugt   wird,  auch 
wenn  es  aus  dem  Bewusstsein  oder  Erregtheit  der  Seele  entschwindet, 
doch  innerlich  fortexistirt,  und  in  die  spateren  gleichartigen  Akte 
als    Unterlage    hineingegeben    wird." — Pragmatische   Psychologic, 
p.  24. 

What  is  the  nature  of  this  functional  disposition  of  nerve-element 
which  is  produced  by  previous  function,  we  know  not.  It  is  clear 
that  we  give  no  explanation  of  it  by  calling  it  so,  any  more  than  we 
do  by  describing  it,  as  Beneke  did,  as  a  residuum  or  vestige  of  pre- 
vious activity,  or,  as  was  done  by  certain  German  writers,  as  poten- 
tial or  unconscious  idea.  Objections  to  the  supposition  of  uncon- 
scious idea  laid  by  inactive  in  the  mind  or  brain  are  not  far  to  seek. 
"Ideas,  "Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  remarks  {Principles  of  Psychology,  vii. 
p.  485),  "  are  like  the  successive  chords  and  cadences  brought  out 
from  a  piano,  which  successively  die  away  as  other  ones  are  sounded. 
And  it  would  be  as  proper  to  say  that  these  passing  chords  and 
cadences  thereafter  exist  in  the  piano,  as  it  is  proper  to  say  that 
passing  ideas  thereafter  exist  in  the  brain.  In  the  one  case,  as  in 
the  other,  the  actual  existence  is  the  structure  which,  under  like  con- 
ditions, again  evolves  like  combinations.  ....  The  existence  in 
the  subject  of  any  other  ideas  than  those  which  are  passing,  is  pure 
hypothesis  absolutely  without  any  evidence  whatever."  This 
analogy,  when  we  look  into  it,  teems  more  captivating  than  it  is 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        71 

complete.  What  about  the  performer  in  the  case  of  the  piano 
and  in  the  case  of  the  brain  respectively  ?  Is  not  the  performer 
a  not  unimportant  element,  and  necessary  to  the  completeness 
of  the  analogy?  The  passing  chords  and  cadences  would  have 
small  chance  of  being  brought  out  by  the  piano  if  they  were 
not  previously  in  his  mind.  Where,  then,  in  the  brain  is  the 
equivalent  of  the  harmonic  conceptions  in  the  performer's  mind  ? 
If  Mr.  Spencer  supposes  that  the  individual's  mind,  his  spiritual 
entity,  is  detached  from  the  brain,  and  plays  upon  its  nervous 
plexuses,  as  the  performer  plays  upon  the  piano,  his  analogy 
is  complete ;  but  if  not,  then  he  has  furnished  an  analogy  which 
those  who  do  take  that  view  may  well  thank  him  for.  There 
is  this  difference  between  the  passing  chords  and  cadences  of  the 
piano  and  the  passing  chords  and  cadences  in  the  brain— and  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  the  matter — that,  in  the  former  case,  the  chords  and 
cadences  do  pass  and  leave  no  trace  of  themselves  behind  in  the 
structure  of  the  piano  ;  while,  in  the  latter  case,  they  do  not  pass  or 
die  away  without  leaving  most  important  after-effects  in  the  structure 
of  the  brain  ;  whence  does  arise  in  due  time  a  considerable  differ- 
ence between  a  cultivated  piano  and  a  cultivated  human  brain, 
and  whence  probably  have  arisen,  in  the  progress  of  development 
through  the  ages,  the  differences  between  the  brain  of  a  primeval 
savage  and  the  brain  of  Mr.  Spencer.  Those  who  speak  of  latent 
ideas  do,  therefore,  endeavour  to  denote  thereby  an  important  some- 
thing which  Mr.  Spencer's  analogy  leaves  out  of  sight.  With  the 
brain,  function  makes  faculty  ;  not  so  with  the  piano. 

Another  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  unconscious  ideas,  is  that  we 
only  know  ideas  through  consciousness,  and  consciousness  through 
ideas ;  the  expression,  unconscious  idea,  is  as  absurd  therefore  as 
that  of  unconscious  consciousness.  If  to  this  it  be  replied  that  the 
energies  which  appear  in  consciousness  as  ideas  may  certainly  be 
sometimes  excited  into  activity,  and  have  their  effect  upon  thought 
or  upon  movement,  without  our  consciousness,  it  may  be  said  that 
we  do  wrong  to  call  them  ideas  in  such  case  ;  and  even  if  we  do  call 
them  so,  they  are  still  active  ideas,  and  that  the  question  is  not  of 
such,  but  of  so-called  ideas  that  are  laid  by  inactive.  It  is  this 
which  is  the  absurdity  ;  for  the  idea,  like  the  definite  movement  of 
muscle,  is  the  function  not  the  structure,  not  the  statical  element  but 
the  element  in  action  ;  we  might  as  well  speak  of  the  movement  of 
blowing  the  nose  as  being  laid  up  inactive  in  the  muscles  or  their 
nerve-centres  (which,  after  all,  in  a  certain  sense  it  is,  for  the  young 
child  can't  blow  its  nose),  as  talk  of  unconscious  ideas  stored  up  in 
the  mind.  Inactive  idea  is,  in  fact,  inactive  action,  a  contradic- 


72  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

lion  in  terms.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  objection  to  speaking  of 
the  functional  disposition  as  a  residuum  or  trace  ;  that  it  is  plainly 
not  a  portion  of  the  idea  which  is  left  behind,  that  there  is  no  re- 
semblance between  the  idea  and  the  modification  of  material 
element  which  follows  it,  and  that  it  is  therefore  improper  to  call  this 
modification  a  residuum  of  idea.  When  the  potentiality  becomes 
energy,  when  the  structure  is  in  function,  then  only  is  there  idea.  It 
is  Wundt  (Grundziige  der  physiologischen  Psychologie,  pp.  712  and 
790)  who  proposes  to  speak  of  it  as  functional  disposition.  When  we 
endeavour  to  form  an  intuition  of  its  nature,  we  are  met  with  the 
difficulty  of  figuring  to  the  senses  what  takes  place  in  such  new, 
obscure,  and  yet  impenetrable  regions  of  minute  activities  as  the 
molecular  processes  of  nerve-function  ;  we  are  driven  to  have  recourse 
to  the  coarser  experiences  of  the  senses  for  the  materials  of  an 
intuition,  which  is  accordingly  coarse  and  inadequate. 

6  (/.  28). — The  most  interesting  description  of  the  feelings  that 
accompany  death  by  drowning,  occurs  in  a  letter  from  Rear- Admiral 
Sir  F.  Beaufort  to  Dr.  Wollaston  : — 

"  From  the  moment  that  all  exertion  had  ceased — which  I  imagine 
was  the  immediate  consequence  of  complete  suffocation — a  calm 
feeling  of  the  most  perfect  tranquillity  superseded  the  previous  tumultu- 
ous sensations  ;  it  might  be  called  apathy,  certainly  not  resignation, 
for  drowning  no  longer  appeared  to  be  an  evil.  I  no  longer  thought 
of  being  rescued,  nor  was  I  in  any  bodily  pain.  On  the  contrary, 
my  sensations  were  now  rather  of  a  pleasurable  cast,  partaking  of 
that  dull  but  contented  sort  of  feeling  which  precedes  the  sleep  pro- 
duced by  fatigue.  Though  the  senses  were  thus  deadened,  not  so 
the  mind  ;  its  activity  seemed  to  be  invigorated  in  a  ratio  which 
defies  all  description,  for  thought  rose  above  thought  with  a  rapidity 
of  succession  that  is  not  only  indescribable,  but  probably  incon- 
ceivable by  any  one  who  has  not  been  in  a  similar  situation.  The 
course  of  these  thoughts  I  can  even  now  in  a  great  measure  retrace — 
the  event  which  had  just  taken  place — the  awkwardness  that  had  pro- 
duced it,  the  bustle  it  had  occasioned,  the  effect  it  would  have  on  a 
most  affectionate  father,  the  manner  in  which  he  would  disclose  it  to 
the  rest  of  the  family,  and  a  thousand  other  circumstances  minutely 
associated  with  home,  were  the  first  series  of  reflections  that  occurred. 
They  took  then  a  wider  range,  our  last  cruise,  a  former  voyage  and 
shipwreck,  my  school,  the  progress  I  had  made  there,  and  the  time  I 
had  misspent,  and  even  all  my  boyish  pursuits  and  adventures.  Thus 
travelling  backwards,  every  past  incident  of  my  life  seemed  to  glance 
across  my  recollection  in  retrograde  succession  ;  not,  however,  in 
mere  outline  and  collateral  feature.  In  short,  the  whole  period  of' 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        73 

my  existence  seemed  to  be  placed  before  me  in  a  kind  of  panoramic 
review,  and  each  act  of  it  seemed  to  be  accompanied  by  a  conscious- 
ness of  right  and  wrong,  or  by  some  reflection  on  its  cause  or  its  con- 
sequences ;  indeed,  many  trifling  events  which  had  long  been  for- 
gotten, then  crowded  into  my  imagination,  and  with  the  character  of 
recent  familiarity.  ....  The  length  of  time  that  was  occupied 
with  this  deluge  of  ideas,  or  rather  the  shortness  of  time  into  which 
they  were  condensed,  I  cannot  now  state  with  precision  :  yet  cer- 
tainly two  minutes  could  not  have  elapsed  from  the  moment  of  suffo- 
cation to  the  time  of  my  being  hauled  up." 

In  the  Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater  (p.  261),  De  Quincey  relates 
how,  when  dreaming  under  the  influence  of  opium,  he  remembered 
things  which,  when  waking,  he  could  not  have  recognized  as  parts 
of  his  former  experience,  and  remembered  them  with  all  the  feelings 
of  the  original  experience  ;  and  thereupon  quotes  a  surmise  that  the 
lxx>k  which  shall  be  opened  at  the  day  of  judgment  is  the  everlast- 
ing roll  of  remembrance.  "The  minutest  incidents  of  my  childhood, 
or  forgotten  scenes  of  later  years,  were  often  revived.  I  could  not 
be  said  to  recollect  them  ;  for,  if  I  had  been  told  of  them  when 
wakjng,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to  acknowledge  them  as  parts 
of  my  past  experience.  But  placed  as  they  were  before  me  in  dreams 
like  intuitions,  and  clothed  in  all  the  evanescent  circumstances  and 
accompanying  feelings,  I  recognized  them  instantly.  ....  Of  this, 
at  least,  I  feel  assured,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  ultimate  for- 
getting ;  traces  once  impressed  upon  the  memory  are  indestructible  : 
a  thousand  accidents  may  and  will  interpose  a  veil  between  our  pre- 
sent consciousness  and  the  secret  inscriptions  of  the  mind.  Accidents 
of  the  same  sort  will  also  rend  away  this  veil.  But  alike,  whether 
veiled  or  unveiled,  the  inscription  remains  for  ever ;  just  as  the  stars 
seem  to  withdraw  before  the  common  light  of  day,  whereas,  in  fact, 
we  all  know  that  it  is  the  light  which  is  drawn  over  them  as  a  veil ; 
and  they  are  waiting  to  be  revealed,  whenever  the  obscuring  daylight 
itself  shall  have  withdrawn."  One  is  tempted  to  add  the  question 
from  Blanco  White's  Sonnet: — 

"If  Light  may  thus  deceive,  wherefore  not  Life?" 

*  (/.  41). — "It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  (Dugald  Stewart)  had 
not  studied  (he  even  treats  it  as  inconceivable)  the  Leibnitzian 
doctrine  of  what  has  not  been  well  denominated  obscure  perceptions 
or  ideas— that  is,  acts  and  affections  of  mind,  which,  manifesting 
their  existence  in  their  effects,  are  themselves  out  of  consciousness  or 
apperception.  The  fact  of  such  latent  mental  modifications  is  now 
established  beyond  all  rational  doubt ;  and  on  the  supposition  of 


J4  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

their  reality,  we  are  able  to  solve  various  psychological  phenomena 
otherwise  inexplicable.  Among  these  are  many  of  those  attributed 
to  habit"  (Sir  W.  Hamilton,  in  his  edition  of  Reid,  p.  551.) 

"  Daraus,  dass  die  Seele  des  Gedankens  sich  nicht  bewusst  sei, 
folge  noch  gar  nicht,  dass  sie  zu  denken  aufhore."  (Xcue  l-'ersuche 
lib.  J.  menschlich.  Ver stand.  B.  ii. 

"  Ich  sehe  nicht,"  says  Leibnitz,  again,  "dass  die  CartesSaner 
jtmals  beweisen  haben  oder  beweisen  konnen,  dass  jede  Vorstellung 
von  Bewusstsein  begleitet  ist"  And  again  : — "  Darin  namlich 
haben  die  Cartesianer  sehr  gcfehlt,  dass  sie  die  Vorstellungen,  deren 
man  sich  nicht  bewusst  1st,  fiir  nichts  rechneten.  Das  war  auch  der 
Grand,  warum  sie  glaublen,  dass  nur  die  Geiste  onaden  waren,  und 
dass  es  keine  Seelen  der  Thiere  oder  andere  Entelechien  gebe." — 
Leibnitz  als  Denker.  Ausu>ahl  seiner  kleincrn  Aufsatze.  By  G. 
Schelling.  Pp.  108  and  115. 

He  was  the  first  to  assert  the  existence  of  "unconscious  per- 
ceptions or  ideas,"  and  he  assigned  them  a  high  importance.  The 
phrase  may  seem  paradoxical,  but  the  contradiction  is  perhaps  only 
apparent  For  if  we  only  know  what  we  are  conscious  of,  and  know 
nothing  of  which  we  are  not  conscious,  what  right  have  we  to 
declare  of  the  existence  which  we  know  by  or  in  consciousness,  that 
it  can  have  no  existence  out  of  consciousness ?  "Vorstellungen 
zu  haben,  und  sich  ihrer  doch  nicht  bewusst  zu  sein,  darin  scheint 
ein  Widerspruch  zu  liegen.  Allein  wir  konnen  uns  doch  mittelbar 
bewusst  sein,  eine  Vorstellung  zu  haben,  ob  wir  gleich  unmittelbar 
uns  ihrer  nicht  bewusst  sein." — KANT,  Anihropologie.  Quoted  by 
Hartmann  :  Philos*phic  des  Unbewussten.  VoL  i.  p.  13. 

Fichte,  in  his  Btstimmung  dts  Afenscken — "  In  jedem  Momente 
ihrer  Dauer  ist  die  Natur  ein  zusumrnenhangendes  Ganze  ;  in  jedem 
Momente  muss  jeder  einzelne  Theil  derselbe  so  sein  wie  er  ist,  weil 
alle  iibrigen  sind  wie  sie  sind  ;  und  du  konntest  kein  Sandkornchen 
von  seiner  Stelle  verriicken,  ohne  dadurch  vielleicht  alle  Theile  des 
unermesslichen  Ganzen  hindurch  etwas  zu  verandern.  Al>er  jeder 
Moment  dieser  Dauer  ist  bestimmt  durch  alle  abgelaufenen  Momente, 
und  wird  bestimmen  alle  kiinftigen  Momente,  und  du  kannst  in  dem 
gegenwartigen  keines  Sandkorne  Lage  andcrs  denken  als  sie  ist, 
ohne  dass  du  genothigt  wiirdest  die  ganze  Vergangenheit  ins  Un- 
bestimmte  hinauf,  und  die  ganze  Zukunft  ins  Unbestimmte  herabdir 
anders  zu  denken." — Sammtliche  Werke,  ii.  178. 

It  is  only  right  to  add,  that  the  fullest  exposition  of  unconscious 
menial  action  is  to  be  found  in  Beneke's  works.  A  summary  of 
his  views  is  contained  in  his  Lchrbutk  der  Psychologic  als  Natur- 
wissenschafl. 


I.]        THE  METHOD  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  MIND.        75 

*  (/•  69)-— I  leave  this  note  as  it  stood  in  the  first  edition  (1867). 
Then  the  criticism  was  thought  by  some  to  be  hardly  just ;  indeed, 
it  has  not  escaped  censure.  There  are  few  persons,  I  suspect,  who 
would  not  endorse  it  now  in  its  application  to  Mill. 

Since  this  chapter  was  written,  and,  indeed,  separately  published, 
Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  has  made  a  powerful  defence  of  the  so-called  Psycho- 
logical Method.  In  his  criticism  of  Comte  in  the  Westminster 
A'at'fU1  for  April  1865,  and  in  his  "  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamil- 
ton's Philosophy,"  he  has  said  all  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of  the 
Psychological  Method,  and  has  done  what  could  be  done  to  dis- 
parage the  Physiological  Method.  This  he  had  already  done  many 
years  ago  in  the  second  volume  of  his  "System  of  Logic,"  and  he 
is  now  only  consistent  in  returning  to  the  charge.  Nevertheless, 
the  admirers  of  Mr.  Mill  may  well  experience  regret  to  see  him 
serving  with  so  much  zeal  on  what  is  a  so  desperately  forlorn  hope. 
Physiology  seems  never  to  have  been  a  favourite  study  with  Mr. 
Mill — in  none  of  his  writings  does  he  exhibit  any  indications  of  being 
really  acquainted  with  it ;  for  it  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive  that 
any  one  having  a  knowledge  of  the  present  state  of  this  science, 
would  disparage  it  as  he  has  done,  and  exalt  so  highly  the  psycholo- 
gical method  of  investigating  mental  phenomena.  The  wonder  is, 
however,  that  he  who  has  done  so  much  to  expound  the  system 
of  Comte,  and  to  strengthen  and  complete  it,  should  on  this  question 
take  leave  of  it  entirely,  and  follow  and  laud  a  method  of  research 
which  is  so  directly  opposed  to  the  method  of  positive  science.  Of 
course,  I  speak  now  strictly  of  the  method,  not  of  Comte's  applica- 
tion of  it  in  his  unfounded  phrenological  speculations,  which  are 
scarcely  less  wild  and  absurd  than  his  religious  delirium  appears 
to  be.  [Not  really  so  wild  as  I  rashly  imagined — that  comes  of 
giving  an  opinion  of  an  author  without  having  read  him  properly.] 
However,  though  one  may  suspect  Mr.  Mill  to  be  unfortunate  in  his 
ignorance,  or  entirely  mistaken  in  his  estimate,  of  the  physiological 
method,  one  cannot  fail  to  profit  by  the  study  of  his  arguments 
on  behalf  of  the  psychological  method,  and  by  his  exposition  of 
its  merits.  By  parading  the  whole  force  of  the  reasons  in  favour 
of  it,  he  has  exhibited,  not  so  much  its  strength  as  its  wenkncss, 
and  has  undesignedly  given  important  assistance  to  the  physiological 
method.  For  the  reasons  why  he  has  not  been  convincing,  and  why 
this  chapter  has  been  left  unmodified,  I  may  refer  to  the  arguments 
set  forth  in  a  review  of  his  "Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's 
Philosophy"  in  the  Journal  of  Mental  Science  for  January  1866. 
"Mr.  Mill,"  it  is  there  said,  "has  a  high  opinion  of  the  psycho- 
logical method  of  inquiry  into  mental  phenomena,  and  thinks  Comte 


76  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.          [CHAP.  L 

to  have  committed  a  great  error  in  discarding  it.  Whether  that  be 
true  or  not  is  not  the  question  now  ;  we  may  admit  it  to  be  true,  and 
still  ask  whether  it  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  ignoring  those  important 
results  of  the  physiological  method  of  research  which  bear  vitally 
on  psychology  ;  whether,  in  fact,  because  a  certain  method  has 
some  worth,  it  can  therefore  afford  to  dispense  entirely  with  the 
aid  furnished  by  other  methods." 

And  again  : — "  The  present  complaint  against  Mr.  Mill  is  that 
he  takes  no  notice  of  the  effects  of  recent  scientific  conceptions  on 
the  questions  referred  to  philosophy  ;  that  he  goes  on  exactly  as  he 
might  have  gone  on  if  he  had  lived  in  the  days  of  Aristotle  ;  that  at 
a  time  when  a  new  method,  highly  fertile  in  fact  and  of  more  fruitful 
promise,  was  available,  he  persists  in  trying  to  do,  by  the  old  method, 
what  Plato,  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  a  host  of  others  have 
not  done.  Now,  we  have  not  the  slightest  faith  that  ten  thousand 
Mills  will,  following  the  same  method,  do  what  these  great  men 
have  not  done;  but  there  can  be  no  question  that,  had  Mr.  Mill 
chosen  to  avail  himself  of  the  new  material  and  the  new  method, 
which  his  great  predecessors  had  not  in  their  day,  he  would  have 
done  what  no  other  living  man  could  have  done." 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM. 

'*  That  -which  fere fives  is  a  part  of  nature  as  truly  as  the  objects  of 
perception  which  act  on  it,  and,  as  a  part  of  nature,  is  itself  an 
object  of  investigation  purely  physical.  It  is  known  to  us  only  in 
the  successive  changes  which  constitute  the  variety  of  our  feelings  : 
but  the  regular  sequence  of  these  changes  admits  of  being  traced, 
like  the  regularity  which  we  are  capable  of  discovering  in  the  suc- 
cessive organic  changes  of  our  bodily  frame.  There  is  a  Physiology 
of  the  Mind,  then,  as  there  is  a  Physiology  of  the  Body — a  science 
which  examines  the  phenomena  of  our  spiritual  part  simply  as  phe- 
nomena, and  from  the  order  of  their  succession,  or  other  circum- 
stances of  analogy,  arranges  them  in  classes  under  certain  general 
names  ;  as,  in  the  physiology  of  our  corporeal  part,  we  consider  the 
phenomena  of  a  different  kind  which  the  body  exhibits,  and  reduce 
all  the  diversities  of  these  under  the  names  of  a  few  general  Func- 
tions."— Sketch  of  a  System  of  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  by 
T.  Brown,  M.D. 

THE  crude  proposition  that  the  brain  secretes  thought 
as  the  liver  secretes  bile  has  been  the  subject  of  much 
ridicule  to  those  who  have  not  received  it  with  out- 
cries of  disapprobation  and  disgust.*  Assuredly  it  is  not 
an  exact  expression  of  the  facts  ;  one  may  rightly  admit 
the  brain  to  be  the  principal  organ  of  mind  without  ac- 
cepting the  fallacious  comparison  of  mental  function 

*   "Nous  concluons  avec  la  mcme  certitude  que  le  cerveau  dige're 
en  quelque  sort  les  impressions  ;  qu'il  fait  organ;quement  la  secre- 
tion de  la  pensee." — Rapport  du  Physique  et  du  Moral  de  F  Ilomme, 
par  P.  J.  G.  Cabanis. 
5 


78  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

with  biliary  secretion.  Here  as  elsewhere,  confusion  is 
bred  by  the  common  use  of  the  word  "  secretion  "  to  ex- 
press, not  only  the  functional  process  but  the  secreted 
product,  both  the  insensible  vital  changes  and  the  tangible 
results  of  them.  Let  us  begin  with  the  endeavour  to  fix, 
with  as  much  precision  as  possible,  what  we  mean  by 
mind. 

In  the  first  place,  mind,  viewed  in  its  scientific  sense 
as  a  natural  force,  cannot  be  observed  and  handled  and 
dealt  with  as  a  palpable  object ;  like  electricity,  or 
gravity,  or  any  other  .of  the  natural  forces,  it  is  appreci- 
able only  in  the  changes  of  matter  which  are  the  con- 
ditions of  its  manifestation.  Few,  if  any,  will  now  be  found 
to  deny  that  with  each  display  of  mental  power  there  are 
correlative  changes  in  the  material  substratum ;  that  every 
phenomenon  of  mind  is  the  result,  as  manifest  energy,  of 
some  change,  molecular,  chemical,  or  vital,  in  the  nervous 
elements  of  the  brain.  But  we  have  to  deal  here  with 
matter  the  chemical  nature  of  which  is  extremely  complex 
and  obscure;  for  notwithstanding  the  labour  which  has 
been  given  to  the  chemical  analysis  of  the  brain  and 
nervous  system,  and,  notwithstanding  that  we  are  sure  of 
its  chemical  elements,  very  little  is  yet  known  exactly  of 
the  actual  composition  of  nerve  element.  This  much, 
however,  is  certain  :  that  its  constituents  are  of  a  very 
complex  character,  easily  undergo  decomposition,  and, 
being  compounded  largely  of  carbon  and  hydrogen,  have 
a  high  oxidation  value.  It  is  probable  that  a  chemical 
synthesis  is  effected  in  the  substance  of  nerve,  through 
which  the  nutrient  material  brought  by  the  blood  is 
finally  converted  into  highly  complex  and  unstable 
albuminoid  compounds  ;  these  representing  a  great  value 
of  potential  energy,  which  becomes  actual  through  their 
decomposition  during  function.  The  compounds  named 
Cerebrin,  Cerebrinic  acid,  Lecithin,  and  the  various  fats 
containing  phosphorus,  which  have  been  discovered  in 


ii.  1       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       79 

the  brain,  have  been  supposed,  indeed,  to  be  derived 
from  the  disintegration  of  a  more  complex  substance 
named  Protagon,  having  a  chemical  composition  re- 
presented by  the  formula  C232  H240  N4  PO44.*  Whether 
that  be  so  or  not  must  be  decided  by  future  research ; 
meanwhile,  we  are  content  to  believe  that  without  oxida- 
tion we  can  no  more  have  thought  from  brain  than  we 
can  have  flame  from  fuel. 

The  so-called  extractives  of  nerve  further  testify  to 
change  or  retrograde  metamorphosis  through  functional 
activity ;  for  there  are  found  lactic  acid,  kreatin,  uric  acid, 
probably  also  hypoxanthin,  and,  representing  the  fatty 
acids,  formic  and  acetic  acids.  These  products  are  like 
those  which  are  found  in  muscle  after  its  functional 
activity  :  in  the  performance  of  an  idea,  as  in  the  perform- 
ance of  a  movement,  there  is  a  retrograde  metamorphosis 
of  organic  element ;  the  display  of  energy  is  at  the  cost  of 
highly  organized  matter,  which  undergoes  degeneration  or 
passes  from  a  higher  to  a  lower  grade  of  being ;  and  the 
final  retrograde  products  are,  so  far  as  is  at  present  known, 
somewhat  similar  in  muscle  and  nerve.  While  the  con- 
tents of  nerves,  again,  are  neutral  during  rest  in  the  living 
state,  they  become  acid  after  death  and  after  great  ac- 
tivity during  life  :  the  same  is  the  case  also  with  regard  to 
muscle.t  Furthermore,  after  prolonged  mental  exercise, 
the  products  of  the  disintegration  of  nerve  element,  into 
the  composition  of  which  phosphorus  enters  largely,  are 
recognised  in  an  increase  of  phosphates  in  the  urine ; 
while  it  is  only  by  supposing  an  idea  to  be  accompanied 
by  a  correlative  change  in  the  nerve-cells  that  we  can 

*  The  constitution  of  Lecithin  has  been  represented  by  the 
formula  CM  H90  Nl'O9  ;  that  of  Cerebrin  by  the  formula  C37  II33 
NO,. 

t  During  putrefaction  the  brain  furnishes  acid  products,  among 
which  are  recognised  oleic,  margaric,  phosphoglyceric  and  phos- 
phoric acids. 


8o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

explain  the  exhaustion  following  excessive  mental  work 
and  the  breaking  down  of  the  brain  in  extreme  esses. 

These  things  being  so,  what  is  it  which  in  a  physio- 
logical sense  we  designate  mind  ?  Not  the  material  pro- 
ducts of  cerebral  activity  which  pass  as  excretions  into 
the  blood,  but  the  marvellous  energy  which  cannot  be 
grasped  and  handled.  The  energy  which  is  mind  may 
more  properly  be  compared  with  the  energy  which  is 
muscular  function.  Here,  then,  is  manifest  a  fallacy  of 
the  statement  that  the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver 
secretes  bile.  It  is  plain  that  the  tangible  results  of  the 
brain's  activity,  the  waste  matters  which  pass  into  the 
blood  for  assimilation  by  tissues  of  a  lower  kind  and 
for  ultimate  excretion  from  the  body,  might  not  less 
rightly  be  called  the  secretion  of  the  brain,  and  be  com- 
pared to  the  bile,  than  the  intangible  energy  displayed  in 
the  mental  phenomena. 

That  there  is  a  consumption  of  matter  during  function, 
not  otherwise  than  as  there  is  a  consumption  of  fuel  in 
the  steam-engine,  and  that  the  energy  in  both  cases  is 
produced  thereby,  is  beyond  doubt ;  but  whether  the  sub- 
stance of  the  nerve-cell  itself  suffers  any  waste  is  not  so 
certain.  It  has  been  supposed  that  it  is  the  material 
supplied  by  the  blood  which  is  chiefly  consumed  during 
function,  not  the  substance  of  nerve-cell,  in  like  manner 
as  it  is  the  fuel,  not  the  steam-engine,  which  supplies 
the  necessary  force.  But  if  this  were  so,  why  should  the 
nerve-cell  be  so  soon  exhausted  by  work,  and  require  re- 
pose in  order  to  recruit — if  we  may  not  say,  repair — 
itself?  And  why  does  function  once  exercised  leave 
behind  it  a  disposition  to  future  function,  unless  there  be 
some  molecular  disintegration  of  nerve  which  is  made 
whole  by  nutrition  ?  It  is  found  by  experiment  that  if 
the  vagus  nerve  of  an  animal  be  stimulated,  so  as  to  make 
the  heart  beat  slowly,  it  will  continue  to  beat  for  a  long 
time ;  but  if  galvanism  be  applied  in  such  a  way  as  to 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.        81 

quicken  the  heart's  pulsations,  it  quickly  becomes  ex- 
hausted and  stops ;  owing,  it  would  seem,  to  exhaustion 
of  its  motor  nerve-centres,  which  stimulation  of  the 
vagus  prevented  by  diminishing  somehow  the  changes  in 
them.  Then  again,  the  appearance  of  Lecithin  and  of 
the  other  similar  complex  compounds  in  such  quantities 
as  are  met  with  in  the  brain  would  indicate  that  there 
is  something  more  going  on  than  a  mere  deposit  of 
material  from  the  blood  and  a  consumption  thereof — 
would  point,  in  fact,  to  some  disintegration  of  the  nerve 
substance  itself;  so  that  it  is  certainly  a  legitimate  sup- 
position that  they  may  be  supplied  to  the  brain  ready 
made  for  consumption.  However,  similar  compounds 
have  been  obtained  from  the  blood,  lymph,  yolk  of 
egg,  and  the  spermatic  fluid.  By  the  old  writers  it  was 
said  that  the  "vital  spirits"  were  secreted  from  the 
blood  in  the  brain  and  were  diminished  or  exhausted  by 
frequent  or  prolonged  use.  With  the  necessary  change  of 
terms,  that  is  probably  very  much  what  happens.  The 
elements  of  nerve  substance  are  secreted  from  the  blood 
in  the  nerve-cells,  and,  undergoing  decomposition  during 
function,  are  diminished  or  exhausted  by  frequent  or  pro- 
longed use.  It  may  be  that  there  is  something  in  the 
nerve-cell  which  is  fixed  and  forms  a  sort  of  permanent 
framework,  and  that  a  part  is  unstable  and  transitory, 
being  perpetually  decompounded  during  function  and 
recompounded  during  rest  The  fact  is,  that  we  cannot 
sever  a  nerve-cell  from  its  medium ;  tha'  which  it  takes 
into  itself  from  the  blood  is  an  essential  part  of  its 
nature  and  function — without  it,  it  could  not  be  a  living 
nerve-cell ;  and  it  is  to  make  an  absolute  division  which 
exists  not  in  nature  when  we  affirm  that  the  material 
consumed  in  function  belongs  either  exclusively  to  the 
blood  or  to  the  nerve-cell. 

Secondly,  it  is  needful,  in  order  to  avoid  confusion,  to 
apprehend  the  exact  signification  of  what  is  understood  by 


8a  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  common  and  vague  use  of  the  word  mind.  It  is 
really  a  general  term  acquired  by  observation  of  and 
abstraction  from  the  manifold  variety  of  mental  pheno- 
mena :  by  such  observation  of  the  particular  phenomena 
and  appropriate  abstraction  from  them  we  get,  as  an 
ultimate  generalization,  the  general  conception  or  the, 
so  to  speak,  essential  idea  of  mind.  An  illustration  will 
help  to  exhibit  what  I  mean.  The  steam-engine  is  a 
complicated  mechanism,  of  the  construction  and  mode 
of  action  of  which  many  people  know  very  little,  but  it 
has  a  very  definite  function  of  which  those  who  know 
nothing  of  its  construction  can  still  form  a  sufficiently 
distinct  conception  ;  the  co-ordinate  integral  action  of 
the  steam-engine,  as  we  conceive  it,  is  different  from  the 
nicely-adjusted  mechanism,  or  from  the  action  of  any 
part  of  it.  But  the  function  of  the  engine  is  dependent 
on  the  mechanism  and  on  the  co  ordinate  action  of  its 
parts,  as  well  as  on  the  supply  of  suitable  fuel,  cannot  be 
dissociated  from  these,  and  has  no  real  existence  apart 
from  them,  though  it  may  exist  separately  as  a  conception 
in  our  minds.  By  observation  of  the  mechanism  and 
appropriate  abstraction  we  get  the  essential  idea  of  the 
steam-engine,  a  fundamental  idea  of  it,  which,  as  our 
ultimate  generalization,  expresses  its  very  nature  as  such, 
containing,  as  Coleridge  would  have  said,  "the  inmost 
principles  of  its  possibility  as  a  steam-engine." 

So  likewise  with  regard  to  the  manifold  phenomena  of 
mind :  by  observation  of  them  and  abstraction  from  the 
particular  we  get  the  general  conception  or  the  essential 
idea  of  mind,  an  idea  which  has  no  more  existence  out  of 
the  mind  than  any  other  abstract  idea  or  general  term. 
Because  we  can  form  the  general  conception  of  mind,  it 
does  not  follow  that  mind  can  exist  apart  from  the  complex 
organization  of  the  brain  and  its  suitable  blood-supply ; 
we  have  no  warrant  in  science  or  in  logic  for  such  an 
inference.  In  virtue,  however,  of  that  powerful  tendency 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       83 

in  the  human  mind  to  make  the  reality  conformable  to 
the  idea,  a  tendency  which  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  so 
much  confusion  in  philosophy,  this  general  conception 
has  been  converted  into  an  objective  entity  and  allowed 
to  tyrannize  over  the  understanding.  A  metaphysical 
abstraction  has  been  made  into  a  spiritual  entity,  and  a 
complete  barrier  thereby  interposed  in  the  way  of  posi- 
tive investigation.  Whatever  be  the  real  nature  of  mind 
— and  concerning  that  it  is  as  vain  to  speculate  as 
concerning  the  real  nature  of  gravitation,  electricity,  or 
chemical  affinity — it  is  most  certainly  dependent  for  its 
every  manifestation  on  the  brain  and  nervous  system ; 
and  now  that  scientific  research  is  daily  disclosing  more 
clearly  the  relations  between  it  and  its  organ,  it  is  plainly 
most  desirable  to  guard  against  the  common  metaphy- 
sical conception  of  mind,  by  recognizing  the  true  subjec- 
tive character  of  the  conception  and  the  mode  of  its  origin 
and  growth. 

A  third  important  consideration  is  that  mental  power 
is  truly  an  organized  result,  not,  strictly  speaking,  built 
up,  but  matured  by  insensible  degrees  in  the  course  of 
life.  The  brain  is  not,  like  the  liver,  the  heart  and  other 
internal  organs,  capable,  from  the  moment  of  birth,  of  all 
the  functions  which  it  ever  discharges  j  for  while,  in  com- 
mon with  them,  it  has  a  certain  organic  function  to  which 
it  is  born  equal,  its  high  special  character  in  man  as  the 
organ  of  conscious  life,  the  supreme  instrument  of  his 
relations  with  the  rest  of  nature,  is  developed  only  by  a 
long  and  patient  education.  Its  functions  are  developed 
by  education  in  the  individual  as  they  have  been  de- 
veloped in  the  race  by  the  gradual  results  of  education 
through  the  ages.  If  we  are  inclined  to  feel  surprise 
that  so  great  a  result  should  be  accomplished  in  the  in- 
dividual in  so  short  a  time,  we  shall  do  well  to  reflect  upon 
—first,  the  rich  inheritance  of  other  men's  labour,  '  the 
capitalized  experiences,'  which  he  has  in  the  constitution 


84  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

of  his  brain ;  and,  secondly,  the  vast  amount  of  human 
labour  and  experience  which  is  concentrated  in  what  we 
call  education — that  is,  in  the  means  and  appliances 
brought  to  bear  even  on  the  humblest  child  ;  for  these 
means  and  appliances  represent  the  accumulated  acquisi- 
tion of  ages  of  human  struggle.  The  very  language 
which  it  is  taught  embodies  the  gains  of  countless  ages 
of  progressive  adjustment  of  the  human  organism  to  its 
environment.  Though  the  brain,  then,  is  formed  during 
embryonic  life,  its  highest  development  only  takes  place 
after  birth;  and,  as  will  hereafter  appear,  the  same  gradual 
progress  from  the  general  to  the  special  which  is  ex- 
hibited in  the  development  of  the  organ  is  witnessed  in 
the  development  of  our  intelligence.  How  inexact  and 
misleading  in  this  regard,  therefore,  is  any  comparison 
between  it  and  the  liver ! 

Nevertheless,  it  must  be  distinctly  laid  down  that 
mental  action  is  as  surely  dependent  on  the  nervous 
structure  and  its  due  supply  of  suitable  blood  as  the 
function  of  the  liver  confessedly  is  on  the  hepatic  struc- 
ture and  its  blood-supply :  that  is  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple upon  which  the  fabric  of  a  mental  science  must  rest.* 
The  countless  thousands  of  nerve-cells  which  form  so 
great  a  part  of  the -delicate  structure  of  the  brain  are 
undoubtedly  the  centres  of  its  functional  activity :  we 
know  right  well  from  experiment  that  the  ganglionic 
nerve-cells  scattered  through  the  tissues  of  organs,  as  for 
example  through  the  walls  of  the  intestines  and  the 

*  Strangely  enough,  some  philosophers  in  Germany  now  maintain 
that  the  proposition  "that  all  conscious  mental  activity  can  only 
take  place  as  a  function  of  the  brain  "  is  unassailable,  but  that  it  is 
not  true  of  unconscious  mental  activity  and  of  the  impulses  and  in- 
tuitions which  it  produces.  "  Uber  die  unbewusste  Geistesthatigkeit 
dagegen  sagt  er  gar  nichts  aus,  sie  bleibt  also,  da  alle  Erscheioungen 
ihre  Unabhangigkeit  von  den  IIirnfunction.cn  beweisen,  als  etwas 
Selbststiindiges  bestehen,  und  nur  die  Form  des  Bewusstsein  erscheint 
durch  die  Materie  bedlngt" — HARTMANN,  p.  388,  3rd  ed. 


ii.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.        85 

structure  of  the  heart,  are  centres  of  nerve  force  minis- 
tering to  their  organic  action ;  and  we  may  confidently 
infer  that  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  brain,  which  are  not 
similarly  amenable  to  observation  and  experiment,  have 
a  like  function.  Certainly  they  are  not  inexhaustible 
centres  of  self-generating  force ;  they  give  out  no  more 
than  what  they  have  in  one  way  or  another  taken  in  ; 
they  receive  material  from  the  blood,  which  they  assimi- 
late, or  make  of  the  same  kind  with  themselves ;  a 
correlative  metamorphosis  of  energy  necessarily  accom- 
panying this  upward  transformation  of  matter,  and  the 
nerve-cell  thus  becoming,  so  long  as  its  unstable  equili- 
brium is  preserved,  a  centre  of  statical  power  of  the 
highest  vital  quality.  The  maintenance  of  the  equili- 
brium of  nerve  element  is  the  condition  of  latent  thought 
—  it  is  mind  statical;  the  manifestation  of  thought  in- 
volves the  change  or  destruction  of  nerve  element.  The 
nerve-cell  of  the  brain,  it  might  in  fact  be  said,  repre- 
sents statical  thought,  while  thought  represents  dy- 
namical nerve-cell,  or,  more  properly,  the  energy  of 
nerve-celL 

I  do  not  go  then  farther  than  fncts  warrant  when  I  de- 
clare the  following  propositions  to  be  established  in  mental 
science : — (a.)  When  a  thought  occurs  in  the  mind  there 
necessarily  occurs  a  correlative  change  in  the  grey  matter 
of  the  brain ;  without  it  the  thought  could  not  arise,  and 
with  it  cannot  fail  to  arise,  (b.)  This  change  consists  in 
a  movement  of  some  kind,  which,  in  our  present  defect 
of  knowledge,  everyone  may  conceive  of  as  he  pleases. 
The  nearest  analogy  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  com- 
pounds, and  compounds  of  compounds,  of  vibrations  in 
music ;  at  any  rate  this  analogy  will  help  us,  coarse  and 
defective  as  it  may  be,  to  frame  some  kind  of  intuition  of 
what  takes  place.  Unzer  called  these  movements  material 
ideas,  and  divided  them  into  object-presentative  and  repre- 
sentative according  as  they  were  excited  from  without 


80  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAT. 

and  from  within.  They  are  determined  in  direction  by  the 
established  nerve-paths — the  fibres  and  the  connections  of 
cells,  (c.)  The  movement  takes  time ;  the  time  occupied 
is  sometimes  longer,  sometimes  shorter,  but  is  always  an 
appreciable  period,  as  will  be  pointed  out  later  on.  (//.) 
It  requires  a  regular  supply  of  properly  constituted  blood. 
(e.)  It  is  arrested  or  prevented  by  an  interruption  of  the 
continuity  of  nerve,  or  by  slight  modifications  of  its  struc- 
ture, as  by  section  of  or  pressure  on  a  nerve,  or  by  com- 
pression of  the  brain.  (/.)  The  movements  are  impeded 
and  finally  prevented  by  the  exhaustion  produced  by 
frequent  or  prolonged  exercise  without  due  intervals 
of  rest. 

So  far  from  discussing  whether  mind  is  a  function  of 
brain,  the  business  which  science  now  has  immediately 
before  it  is  the  mofe  special  investigation  of  the  condi- 
tions of  activity  of  the  ganglionic  nerve-cells  or  groups 
of  nerve-cells  and  of  the  fibres  which  unite  them  into  mul- 
titudinous plexuses.  If  we  look  to  those  humbler  animals 
in  which  nervous  tissue  makes  its  first  appearance,  it  is 
plain  that  the  simple  mode  of  its  existence  in  them  allows 
of  no  other  manner  of  proceeding ;  if  we  trace  upwards 
the  gradual  increasing  complication  of  the  nervous  system 
through  the  animal  kingdom,  i.t  is  evident  that  such 
manner  of  proceeding  is  the  only  one  to  furnish  the 
materials  of  a  comprehensive  and  sound  induction  ;  and 
if  we  duly  weigh  the  results  of  physiological  experiment 
and  pathological  research,  it  is  no  less  certain  that  we 
must  discard  scientific  investigation  altogether  in  cerebral 
physiology,  if  we  reject  the  ganglionic  nerve-cells  of  the 
brain  as  centres  of  mental  force. 

In  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  life  nerve  does  not  exist: 
the  Protozoa  and  many  of  the  Zoophytes  are,  so  far  as 
can  be  ascertained,  destitute  of  any  trace  of  nervous 
system.  The  most  simple  beings  consist  of  an  apparently 
uniform,  homogeneous  substance,  by  means  of  which  all 


ii.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       87 

their  functions  are  executed.*  They  are  nourished 
without  digestive  organs ;  breathe  without  respiratory 
organs ;  feel  and  move  without  organs  of  sense,  without 
muscles,  without  nervous  system.  The  stimulus  which 
the  little  creature  receives  from  without  produces  some 
change  in  the  molecular  relations  of  its  almost  homo- 
geneous substance,  and  these  insensible  movements 
would  seera  to  amount  collectively  to  the  sensible  move- 
ment which  it  makes.  The  perception  of  the  stimulus 
by  the  creature  is  the  molecular  change  which  ensues, 
the  imperceptible  motion  passing,  by  reason  of  the 
homogeneity  of  its  substance,  with  the  greatest  ease 
from  element  to  element  of  the  same  kind,  as  it  were  by 
an  infection,  or  as  happens  in  the  sensitive  plant;  and 
the  sum  of  the  insensible  molecular  motions,  as  neces- 
sarily determined  in  direction  by  the  form  of  the  animal, 
or  by  some  not  yet  recognised  cause,  results  in  the  visible 
movement.  The  important  researches  of  Graham  into 
the  colloidal  condition  of  matter  have  proved  the  neces- 
sity of  considerable  modification  in  the  common  concep- 
tion of  solid  matter  :  instead  of  the  notion  of  impenetra- 
ble, inert  matter,  we  must  substitute  the  idea  of  matter 
which,  in  its  colloidal  state,  is  penetrable,  exhibits 
energy,  and  is  widely  susceptible  to  external  agents,  "  its 
existence  being  a  continued  metastasis." f  This  sort  of 
energy  is  not  a  result  of  chemical  action,  for  colloids  are 

*  One  must  guard  against  the  assumption  that  any  kind  of  living 
protoplasm  is  really  homogeneous.  Hyaline  it  may  be,  but  we 
know  not  how  complex  its  structure  may  be.  It  is  possible  that 
sometimes  tracks  in  the  apparently  homogeneous  substance  may  be 
so  far  differentiated  as  to  be  adapted  to  convey  impressions,  and 
thus  to  serve  the  primitive  function  of  nerve,  although  we  cannot 
observe  the  least  difference  in  structure.  As  nerve  is  formed  by 
differentiation  from  apparently  homogeneous  substance,  there  must 
be  a  period  when  we  cannot  say  with  certainty  whether  what  we  see 
is  nerve  or  is  not. 

t  Philosophical  Transactions ,1862. 


88  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

singularly  inert  in  all  ordinary  chemical  relations,  but  a 
result  of  its  unknown  intimate  molecular  constitution ; 
and  the  undoubted  existence  of  colloidal  energy  in 
organic  substances  which  are  usually  considered  inert  and 
called  dead,  may  well  warrant  the  belief  of  its  larger  and 
more  essential  operation  in  organic  matter  in  the  state  of 
instability  of  composition  in  which  it  is  when  under  the 
condition  of  life.  Such  energy  would  then  suffice  to 
account  for  the  simple  uniform  movements  of  the  homo- 
geneous substance  of  which  the  lowest  animal  consists ; 
and  the  absence  of  any  differentiation  of  structure  is  a 
sufficient  reason  of  the  absence  of  any  localization  of 
function,  and  of  the  general  uniform  reaction  to  different 
impressions.  But  it  will  be  observed  that  even  the 
movements  of  these  simplest  creatures,  in  which  there  is 
not  the  least  indication  of  the  elements  of  a  nervous 
system,  are  not  entirely  vague,  confused,  and  indefinite  ; 
they  present  certain  indications  of  adaptation  to  func- 
tional ends  ;  they  are  definite  in  relation  to  their  medium. 
They  evince,  in  fact,  the  fundamental  property  of  living 
matter,  which  is  manifest  even  in  a  mere  speck  of  living 
protoplasm — namely,  adaptive  motion  in  response  to  im- 
pressions, co-ordination  of  variety  to  unity  of  action,  a 
principle  of  individuation. 

With  differentiation  of  tissue  and  increasing  complexity 
of  organization,  which  are  met  with  as  we  ascend  in  the 
animal  kingdom,  the  nervous  tissue  appears,  but  at  first 
under  a  very  simple  form.(')  Wherever  differentiated  parts 
of  an  organism  are  combined  for  a  common  end,  the  co- 
operation is  effected  by  a  nervous  system.  Its  simplest 
type  or  unit  may  be  represented  as  two  fibres  that  are 
connected  by  a  nerve-cell  or  a  ganglionic  group  of  nerve- 
cells  ;  the  fibres  are  apparently  simple  conductors,  and 
might  be  roughly  compared  to  the  conducting  wires  of  a 
telegraph,  while  the  cell,  being  the  centre  in  which  nerve 
force  is  generated,  may  be  compared  to  the  telegraphic 


II.]       THE  AtlND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       89 

apparatus  ;  the  effect  which  the  stimulus  of  the  afferent 
or  centripetal  nerve  excites  in  it  is  transmitted  along  the 
efferent  or  centrifugal  nerve,  and  therein  is  displayed  the 
simplest  form  of  that  reflex  action  which  plays  so  large  a 
part  in  animal  life.*  This  type  of  structure  is  repeated 
throughout  the  complex  nervous  system  of  all  the  higher 
animals :  the  fibres  with  their  junction-cells  form  units 
from  the  multiplication  and  complex  arrangement  of  which 
the  various  and  most  complicated  nervous  structures  are 
built  up.  Cut  across  the  afferent  nerve  or  otherwise  in- 
terrupt its  continuity,  the  impression  made  upon  its 
terminal  fibres  cannot  reach  the  centre ;  cut  across  the 
efferent  nerve,  the  central  excitation  is  powerless  to  in- 
fluence the  muscles  or  parts  to  which  it  is  distributed. 
Not  all  the  passion  and  eloquence  of  a  Demosthenes 

*  The  fibres  act  as  conductors,  and  have  like  physiological  properties. 
Fhilippeau  and  Vulpian  (Comptcs  Rendus,  vL)  and  Roscnthal  (Cent- 
ralblatt,  No.  29,  1864)  have  succeeded  in  uniting  the  central  end  of 
the  cut  lingual  nerve,  the  sensory  nerve  of  the  tongue,  with  the  peri- 
pheral end  of  the  cut  hypoglossal,  the  motor  nerve  of  the  tongue. 
The  natural  course  of  a  stimulus  is  upwards  in  the  lingual,  down- 
wards in  the  hypoglossal.  But  after  the  union  has  taken  place, 
stimulation  of  the  central  part  of  the  lingual  produced  contractions 
of  the  tongue,  such  as  normally  follow  stimulation  of  the  hypoglossal. 
Thus  it  is  proved  that  the  end  of  a  sensory  nerve  may  be  united  with 
the  end  of  a  motor  nerve,  and  when  the  union  is  complete,  excitation 
of  the  sensory  may  be  transmitted  to  the  motor  fibres.  Inversely, 
stimulation  of  the  peripheral  end  of  the  hypoglossal  produced 
evidence  of  pain.  If  the  end  of  a  rat's  tail  be  grafted  into  the  skin 
of  its  back,  and  when  the  graft  is  completed,  if  the  tail  be  cut  through 
at  its  base,  the  animal  will,  at  the  end  of  some  months,  feel  a  pinch 
of  the  grafted  tail  and  turn  round  to  bite  (Bert).  The  irritation  of 
the  nerve  which,  before  the  operation,  travelled  from  the  end  to  the 
base  of  the  tail,  i.e.  centripetally,  now  travels  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, still  centripetally.  It  would  seem  that,  as  Mr.  Lewes  has  in- 
sisted, the  neurility  is  the  same  in  all  nerves ;  the  difference  of 
function  being  due,  not  to  difference  of  physiological  properties,  but 
to  differences  of  connections  of  the  fibres.  See  also  Lemons  sur  la 
Physiologic  Generate  et  Compared  du  Syslcme  Nerveux,  par  A. 
Vulpian.  1866. 


90  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

could  force  its  way  outwards  into  words,  if  the  motor 
nerves  of  the  tongue  were  cut  across ;  he  would  grimace 
vainly,  like  a  speechless  idiot,  if  a  slight  molecular  change 
in  their  structure  sufficient  to  bar  conduction  were  pro- 
duced. Owing  to  the  differences  of  kinds  of  tissue  and  to 
the  specialization  of  organs  in  the  more  complex  animal, 
there  cannot  plainly  be  that  intimate  molecular  sympathy 
between  all  parts  which  there  is  in  the  homogeneous  sub- 
stance of  the  simplest  monad ;  the  easy  motion,  as  by 
an  infection,  from  particle  to  particle,  where  the  substance 
is  of  the  same  kind,  cannot  take  place  in  the  heteroge- 
neous body,  where  the  elements  are  of  a  different  kind : 
accordingly  special  provision  is  required  for  insuring  com- 
munication between  different  parts,  and  for  co-ordinating 
and  harmonizing  the  activity  of  different  organs.  The 
animal  must  be  rendered  capable  of  associating  a  number 
of  distinct  actions  for  definite  ends. 

This  function,  necessitated  by  the  physiological  division 
of  labour,  the  nervous  system  subserves ;  and  we  might 
compare  it  to  that  which  the  gifted  generalizer  fulfils  in 
human  development :  he  grasps  the  results  of  the  various 
special  investigations  which  a  necessary  division  of  labour 
enforces,  brings  them  together,  and  elaborates  a  result  in 
which  the  different  lines  of  thought  are  co-ordinated,  and 
a  unity  of  action  is  marked  out  for  future  progress.  The 
nervous  system  effects  the  synthesis  which  the  specializa- 
tion of  organic  instruments  in  the  analysis  of  nature  renders 
necessary  ;  it  represents  the  integration  of  relations,  and 
of  relations  of  relations,  of  things  in  a  gradually  ascend- 
ing scale ;  it  is  the  highest  expression  of  that  principle  of 
individuation  which  is  the  characteristic  feature  of  life  in 
all  its  forms,  but  most  manifest  in  its  highest  forms.  To 
this  function  it  is  well  adapted,  first,  by  the  extent  of  its 
distribution,  and,  secondly,  by  its  exceeding  sensibility, 
whereby  an  impression  made  at  one  part  is  soon  felt  at  a 
distance  from  the  place  where  it  is  made. 


if.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       91 

With  the  increasing  complexity  of  organization  which 
marks  the  increasing  speciality  of  organic  adaptation  to 
external  nature,  or,  in  other  words,  which  marks  an  ascent 
in  the  scale  of  animal  life,  there  is  a  progressive  compli- 
cation of  the  nervous  system :  special  developments 
ministering  to  special  purposes  take  place.  The  fibres 
appear  to  preserve  their  characters  as  simple  conduc- 
tors, while  a  development  of  special  structures  at  their 
peripheral  and  of  special  ganglionic  cells,  or  of  special 
connections  of  cells,  at  their  central  endings  reveals  the 
increasing  speciality  and  complexity  of  function.  Upon 
the  special  terminal  structures,  which  are,  as  it  were  the 
instruments  of  analysis,  depends  the  kind  of  the  impres- 
sion made;  they  are  adapted  to  the  special  nature  of 
the  external  impressions  which  they  take  up,  while  the 
kind  of  impression  that  is  perceived  and  the  character 
of  the  reaction  thereto  are  determined  by  the  nature  of 
the  nerve-cells  with  which  the  central  end  of  the  nerve 
is  connected.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  with  the  appear- 
ances of  the  organs  of  the  special  senses,  as  we  mount  in 
the  scale  of  animal  life,  there  is  a  corresponding  increase 
in  the  ganglionic  centres,  which,  being  clustered  together, 
form  the  primitive  rudiments  of  a  brain,  and  represent, 
in  the  main,  those  sensory  ganglia  which  in  man  lie  at  the 
base  of  the  brain  between  the  decussation  of  the  pyramids 
and  the  floors  of  the  lateral  ventricles. 

It  is  not  known  with  certainty  when  the  different  organs 
of  the  special  senses  severally  make  their  first  appearance  ; 
they  are  at  first  very  rudimentary,  and  are  clearly  special- 
ized evolutions  from  the  most  general  sense,  that  of 
touch.  The  skin  is  an  organ  of  sense  which  extends 
over  the  outside  of  the  body,  and  perceives  by  actual 
contact  with  the  objects  that  affect  it ;  the  other  senses 
are  probably  nothing  else  than  differentiated  involutions 
of  it,  complex  cuticular  structures,  which  are  placed  more 
or  less  within  the  body,  and  they  perceive  without  actual 


r)2  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

contact ;  touch  then  may  be  justly  held  to  be  the  primi- 
tive, the  fundamental  sense,  that  which  is  the  mother 
tongue  of  knowledge.  In  the  highest  animals  the 
terminal  fibres  of  the  nerves  of  the  special  senses 
enter  cells  which  have  the  character  of  epithelial  cells, 
and  the  forms  of  which  are  modified  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  external  impressions  which  they  are  fitted 
to  receive.  This  epithelial  character  of  the  terminal 
cells  is  best  seen  in  the  organs  of  smell  and  taste,  but 
it  is  manifest  also  in  the  organ  of  sight ;  for  the  so-called 
staffs  and  cones  of  the  retina,  which  are  alone  sensitive 
to  light,  the  nerve-cells  themselves  of  the  retina  and  the 
optic  fibres  being  not,  are  regarded  as  metamorphosed 
epithelial  cells.*  In  some  of  the  lower  creatures  the 
organs  of  hearing,  smell,  and  taste  are  manifestly  special 
modifications  of  certain  portions  of  the  covering  of  the 
body,  and  the  organ  of  sight  itself,  when  it  appears  in  its 
earliest  and  simplest  form,  is  nothing  more  than  the 
terminal  ending  of  a  nerve,  surrounded  by  a  few  pig- 
ment granules,  in  the  epithelial  cells  of  a  fold  or  recess 
of  the  skin.  Even  in  the  Amphioxus,  which  is  a  vertebrate 
animal,  the  eyes  are  two  small  pigment  spots,  the  organ  of 
smell  is  a  cup-shaped  depression  at  the  fore  end  of  the 
body,  and  no  organ  of  hearing  is  discoverable.  As  we 
ascend  in  the  scale,  structures  adapted  to  the  reception 
of  particular  impressions,  as  of  light,  of  sound,  of  touch, 
become  more  special,  and  render  the  higher  animal 
capable  of  more  numerous,  special,  and  complex  rela- 
tions with  external  nature.  There  is  a  diffusion  through 
the  entire  substance  of  the  simplest  creatures  of  physio- 
logical properties  which  are  specialized  and  localized  ill 
the  higher  animals.f 

*  Wundt,  Grundzuge  der  physiologischen  Psychologie,  p.  318. 

+  The  Hydra  exhibits  a  sensitiveness  to  light,  although  it  has  no 
special  sense  of  sight ;  it  shuns  the  dark  and  chooses  the  light  side 
of  the  vessel  in  which  it  is  placed.  Some  again  of  the  zoophytei 


II.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.        93 

Not  till  we  arrive  as  high  as  the  fishes  do  we  discover 
anything  more  in  the  brain  than  sensory  ganglia  con- 
nected with  the  origins  of  nerves ;  below  them  there 
is  no  trace  of  cerebral  hemispheres  or  brain  proper. 
It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  cerebral  hemispheres  are  not 
essential  to  sensation  or  the  motor  reaction  to  sensa- 
tion ;  for  they  are  altogether  wanting  where  both  these 
functions  are  displayed  in  a  lively  and  vigorous  way.  To 
the  simpler  relation  between  the  individual  organism  and 
external  nature  which  is  denoted  by  reflex  or  excito-nwtor 

that  have  no  definite  organs  of  hearing  contract  themselves  when 
vibrations  of  sound  are  propagated  through  the  medium  in  which 
they  are.  They  feel  the  vibrations,  though  the  feeling  is  no  doubt 
different  in  quality  from  that  which  a  well-developed  organ  of  hearing 
would  impart.  "  Polypes,  zoophytes,  and  other  infusory  animalcules 
that  have  neither  brain  nor  nerves,  feel  and  move  without  a  nervous 
system,  because  the  Author  of  Nature  appears  to  have  endowed  the 
pulp  of  which  their  bodies  are  composed  with  the  faculty  of  sen- 
sation and  motion,  just  as  the  medullary  pulp  of  the  nervous 
system  alone,  of  all  the  organs  of  our  body,  is  endowed  with  that 
faculty." — PROCHASKA,  On  the  Nervous  System,  p.  387.  Syd.  Soc. 
Transl.  When  a  special  sense  fails  in  man,  the  general  sensibility 
may  partially  replace  it.  "  I  have  known  several  instances, "  says 
Abercrombie,  "  of  persons  affected  with  that  extreme  degree  of  deaf- 
ness which  occurs  in  the  deaf  and  dumb,  who  had  a  peculiar  suscepti- 
bility to  particular  kinds  of  sounds,  depending,  apparently,  on  an 
impression  communicated  to  their  organs  of  touch  or  simple  sensation. 
They  could  tell,  for  instance,  the  approach  of  a  carriage  in  the  street 
without  seeing  it,  before  it  was  taken  notice  of  by  persons  who  had 
the  use  of  all  their  senses." — On  the  Intellectual  Powers.  Kruse, 
who  was  completely  deaf,  nevertheless  had  a  bodily  feeling  of  music ; 
and  different  instruments  affected  him  differently.  Musical  tones 
seemed  to  his  perception  to  have  much  analogy  with  colours.  The 
sound  of  a  trumpet  was  yellow  to  him  ;  that  of  a  drum,  red  ;  that  of 
the  organ,  green,  &c. — Early  History  of  Mankind,  by  J.  B.  Tylor. 
In  his  Reminiscentes  of  the  Opera,  Mr.  Lumley  tells  of  a  friend  who 
used  to  compare  the  voices  of  the  different  celebrated  singers  to 
different  colours,  distinguishing  them  so.  It  is  an  old  saying  of  a  blind 
man,  that  he  thought  scarlet  was  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  No 
doubt  colours  have  different  psychical  effects,  red  having  an  exciting 
and  blue  a  calminc;  effect. 


94  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

action,  there  now  succeeds  the  more  complex  relation  of 
sensory  stimulus  and  sensori-motor  reactions  in  place  of 
general  reaction  to  stimulus,  discriminations  of  impres- 
sions and  corresponding  special  reactions  by  virtue  of 
specially  adapted  structures  are  witnessed.  This  condition 
or  stage  of  the  development  of  the  nervous  system,  which 
is  natural  and  permanent  in  so  many  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals, corresponds  to  that  artificial  state  of  things  which 
may  be  produced  experimentally  in  a  higher  animal  by 
depriving  it  of  its  cerebral  hemispheres.  The  kind  of 
function  manifest  is  strictly  comparable  to  that  of  the 
infant's  mental  life  in  the  early  brief  stage  before  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  have  come  into  action,  or  to  those 
phenomena  of  mental  life  sometimes  displayed  by  the 
adult,  as  for  example  by  the  somnambulists,  when  the 
influence  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  is  nearly  sus- 
pended. 

Here  is  suggested  a  reflection :  how  important  it  is 
clearly  to  distinguish  in  thought  and  to  denote  by 
language  special  features,  which,  being  included  under, 
or  described  by,  a  general  term,  are  so  commonly  con- 
founded. What  different  perceptions  or  reactions,  for 
example,  are  confounded  by  the  loose  way  of  using  the 
word  sensibility  !  The  infusory  animalcule,  which  has 
no  nervous  tissue,  is  said  to  be  sensible  of  a  stimulus ; 
the  higher  animal,  with  its  special  senses,  to  be  sensible 
of  light,  or  of  sound,  as  the  case  may  be,  and,  if  made 
to  suffer,  to  be  sensible  of  pain ;  while  it  is  common 
enough  to  speak  of  man  being  sensible  of  pleasure, 
horror,  or  disgust,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  active 
ideas.  Using  the  generic  term  sensibility  to  express  the 
fundamental  reaction,  as  we  may  perhaps  properly  do, 
it  is  highly  important  that  we  go  on  further  to  distinguish 
by  appropriate  terms  the  special  differences ;  the  sensi- 
bility of  pain  is  not  the  sensibility  of  sense,  nor  is  the 
sensibility  of  the  infusory  animalcule  equivalent  to 


ii.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       95 

either  of  these.  So  far  we  have  taken  pains  to  distinguish 
that  form  of  sensibility  and  reaction  proper  to  the  lowest 
animals,  which  might  be  called  irritability ;  that  form 
of  reaction,  or  rcfttx  action,  which  is  the  lowest  expres- 
sion of  nervous  function ;  and  that  form  of  reaction 
to  which  the  sensory  ganglia  minister,  which  is  rightly 
called  sensorial. 

It  is  found  to  be  no  easy  matter  to  form  a  distinct 
conception  of  the  relations  of  consciousness  to  these  dif- 
ferent forms  of  sensibility.  In  order  to  do  so,  we  must 
at  the  outset  abandon  the  notion  of  consciousness  as 
something  of  constant  quality,  which  either  is  or  is  not, 
and  must  realise  the  truth  that  it  may  exist  in  different 
degrees,  ranging  from  the  highest  display  of  self-conscious- 
ness through  grades  of  sub-consciousness  down  to  uncon- 
sciousness. In  the  ordinary  vague  use  of  the  word 
consciousness,  what  is  implied,  though  not  explicitly 
asserted,  is  the  reflex  consciousness  which  is  properly 
self-consciousness.  There  is  certainly  a  vast  difference 
between  this  highest  development  of  consciousness  and 
that  kind  which  accompanies  the  sensation  of  one  ol 
the  special  senses ;  much  more  between  it  and  the  con- 
sciousness, if  there  be  any,  which  accompanies  the 
sensibility  of  the  infusory  animalcule.  The  latter  they 
place  on  too  high  a  level  who  rank  it  with  self-con- 
sciousness, as  they  practically  do  when  they  vaguely 
apply  the  same  word  to  both :  deriving  their  notion  of 
consciousness  from  experience  of  self-consciousness,  they 
apply  it  to  the  sensibility  of  the  lowest  creatures.  It 
would  be  hardly  less  absurd  to  attribute  to  them  the 
possession  of  the  complex  nervous  system  which  is 
essential  to  the  manifestation  of  self  consciousness. 

We  might  say,  it  is  true,  that  as  there  are  in  the 
tissues  of  the  lowest  animals  the  elements  of  a  nervous 
system  which  is  in  process  of  time  differentiated  from 
them,  so  in  the  sensibility  which  they  display  there  are 


96  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  elements  of  those  special  sensations  and  of  that  self- 
consciousness  which  appear  as  their  respective  organs 
are  individualized  in  the  highest  animal ;  but  because  we 
can,  by  a  survey  of  the  course  of  evolution  through  the 
ages,  thus  foresee  in  the  germ  potentially  the  full  fruit, 
we  are  not  therefore  qualified  to  find  the  properties  of 
the  fruit  in  the  germ  :  we  do  wrong  to  discover  in  the 
functions  of  the  lowest  organisms  the  far  more  specialized 
functions  of  the  highest  organisms,  and  to  translate  those 
into  terms  of  these.  Generation  is  a  function  which  is  as 
widely  extended  as  sensibility  through  the  animal  king- 
dom, but  no  one  dreams  of  discovering  the  phenomena 
which  are  part  of  the  function  of  generation  in  man  in  the 
phenomena  of  generation  which  the  polype  displays. 

The  question  is  whether  we  ought  to  attribute  con- 
sciousness at  all  to  the  sensibility  or  susceptibility  of 
creatures  which  have  no  nervous  system.  The  adapted 
impression  certainly  produces  a  definite  effect  which 
issues  in  a  definite  movement,  either  to  avoid  it,  if  in- 
jurious, or  to  embrace  it,  if  profitable ;  but  what  pretence 
is  there  to  affirm  that  consciousness  has  any  part  in 
these  events  ?  The  phenomena  of  our  own  organic  life, 
which  are  of  a  much  higher  order,  point  the  other  way  ; 
we  are  not  conscious  of  having  a  liver,  which  neverthe- 
less produces  marked  effects  upon  our  mental  moods; 
we  are  not  conscious  of  the  very  powerful  influence 
which  it  is  certain  that  our  sexual  organs  exert  upon  our 
ideas  and  feelings ;  we  are  not  conscious  of  a  thousand 
movements  which  we  make  daily,  and  which  nevertheless 
relieve  some  uneasy,  or  occasion  some  easy,  feeling.  I 
know  it  may  be  said  that  we  are  conscious  of  these 
things  but  do  not  attend  to  them  ;  to  which  I  am  tempted 
to  reply  that  it  is  the  attention  which  is  the  conscious- 
ness, and  that  a  consciousness  which  is  not  conscious 
because  it  does  not  attend  is  not  properly  called  con- 
sciousness. I  know  no  reason  why  those  who  attribute 


H.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       97 

consciousness  to  the  sensibility  of  the  lowest  nerveless 
creatures  should  deny  it  to  sulphuric  acid  when,  by  virtue 
of  its  superior  affinity  for  barium,  it  goes  definitely  to 
work  to  displace  nitric  acid  from  its  combination  with 
that  base. 

It  is  in  fishes  that  the  rudiments  of  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres first  appear.  In  them  they  are  represented  by  a 
thin  layer  or  projection  of  nervous  matter  in  front  of  the 
optic  lobes,  covering  the  corpora  striata  and  the  optic 
thalami ;  in  the  Amphibia  they  have  already  increased 
somewhat  in  size;*  in  Birds  the  optic  lobes  are  pushed 
out  to  some  extent  by  their  further  increase;  in  the 
Mammalia  they  begin  to  cover  the  optic  lobes,  and,  as 
we  ascend  in  the  scale  of  life,  gradually  increase  back- 
wards until,  in  some  of  the  higher  monkeys  and  in  man, 
they  entirely  cover  the  cerebellum. 

In  this  ascent  through  the  series  of  vertebrate  animals, 
it  is  found  that  the  relations  of  the  sensory  ganglia  remain 
alike  throughout,  the  chief  differences  being  differences  in 
the  relative  size  of  them.  Their  functions  as  primary 
constituents  of  the  brain  may  then  fairly  be  reckoned  the 
same  in  all  the  vertebrata,  and  indeed  in  all  the  animals 
in  which  they  exist.  As  the  hemispheres  appear  as 
secondary  constituents — secondary,  be  it  noted,  in  the 
order  of  development,  but  primary  in  dignity — we  may 
rightly  conclude  their  function  to  be  secondary  in  the 
order  of  development  to  that  which  the  primary  con- 
stituents or  sensory  ganglia  fulfil.  The  impressions 
received  by  the  sensory  centres  when  these  do  not  react 
directly  outwards,  as  they  may  do  where  hemispheres 
exist  and  as  they  must  do  where  hemispheres  do  not 
exist,  are  in  fact  passed  onwards  in  the  brain  to  the  cells 
which  are  spread  over  the  hemispheres,  and  are  there 

*  The  Perenni-branchiate  reptiles  retain  the  fish  character  of  brain 
all  their  lives ;  the  Batrachians  have  it  only  during  their  tadpole 
state. 


98  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

further  fashioned  into  what  are  called  ideas  or  concep- 
tions. If  the  excitation  is  conveyed  to  .the  sensory 
centre,  passes  thence  to  a  connected  motor  centre,  and 
is  finally  discharged  along  the  motor  nerve  in  motion — 
if,  that  is,  it  passes  along  what  may  be  called  the 
seasonal  arc — the  function  is  sensation  and  sensori-motor 
action :  if,  however,  the  impression  is  conveyed  to  the 
higher  ideational  centres  in  the  hemisphere,  passes  thence 
to  motor  centres,  and  is  finally  discharged  along  a  motor 
nerve  in  action — if,  that  is,  it  passes  along  the  ideational  arc 
— it  is  perception  and  volition.  Here  then  we  come  to 
another  kind  of  sensibility  with  its  appropriate  reaction, 
to  which  special  nervous  centres  minister;  and  it  is 
known  as  perception,  or,  more  strictly,  ideational  percep- 
tion. As  the  hemispheres  have  this  function  and  are  not 
necessary  to  sensation,  it  is  quite  in  accordance  with  what 
might  be  predicted,  that,  as  experiments  prove,  they  are 
insensible  to  pain,  and  do  not  give  rise  to  any  display  of 
that  kind  of  feeling  when  they  are  injured.*  They  have, 
agreeably  to  their  special  nature,  a  sensibility  of  their 
own  to  the  ideas  that  are  fashioned  in  them ;  so  that 
these  may  be  pleasurable  or  painful  or  have  other 
particular  emotional  qualities.  Emotion  is  strictly,  per- 
haps, the  sensibility  of  the  supreme  centres  to  ideas. 

Observation  of  the  mental  phenomena  of  those  ani- 
mals in  which  cerebral  hemispheres  exist  confirms  fully 
the  foregoing  view  of  their  function  and  import  In 
Fishes  there  is  the  first  distinct  appearance  of  simple 
ideas  and  of  the  lowest  rudiments  of  emotion ;  carp 
will  collect  to  be  fed  at  the  sound  of  a  bell,  thus 
giving  evidence  of  the  association  of  two  simple  ideas ; 
and  a  shark,  suspicious  of  mischief,  will  avoid  the  baited 

*  Those  who  have  made  the  painful  experiment  tell  us  that  an 
animal  which  makes  violent  movements  while  the  skin  is  being  cut 
and  the  roof  of  its  skull  removed,  remains  quite  quiet  while  its 
hemispheres  are  being  sliced  away  bit  by  bit. 


II.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.       99 

hook.  In  Birds,  conformably  to  the  increased  develop- 
ment of  the  hemispheres,  the  manifestations  of  intelli- 
gence are  much  greater ;  the  tricks  which  some  of  them 
may  be  taught  are  truly  marvellous,  and  those  who  teach 
them  know  well  how  much  different  birds  differ  in  intelli- 
gence and  temper.  We  look  on  such  performances  as 
marvellous,  because  of  our  ingrained  disposition  to  think 
surprising  all  manifestations  of  intelligence  in  animals 
below  us  in  the  scale  of  life ;  but  if  we  bear  in  mind  the 
fundamental  plastic  property  of  nerve  element  by  which 
it  receives  impressions  and  grows  to  its  modes  of  exercise, 
we  may  abate  somewhat  our  surprise,  and  see  reason  to 
think  that  animals  might  be  made  capable  of  much 
higher  displays  of  intelligence  if  only  we  took  pains  to 
educate  them  through  a  few  generations.  Nor  are  simple 
emotional  exhibitions  wanting  amongst  birds;  very 
evident  at  times  is  the  feeling  of  rivalry  or  jealousy  in 
canaries,  and  there  are  undoubted  instances  on  record 
in  which  an  orphan  bird  has  owed  its  life  to  the  kindly 
care  of  birds  of  a  different  species.*  In  Mammalia  a 
gradual  advance  in  intelligence  may  be  traced  from  very 
humble  manifestations  up  to  those  highest  forms  of  brute 
reason  which  assuredly  differ  only  in  degree  from  the 
lowest  forms  of  human  intelligence.!  Consider  how 
deeply  meditative  the  elephant  sometimes  shows  itself ; 
how  apt  in  cunning  schemes  the  monkey  is ;  how  plainly 
in  the  dog  an  inhibitory  conception  often  intervenes 
between  the  sensation  and  the  usual  respondent  move- 
ment, so  that  the  animal  refrains  from  doing  what  it  has 
a  strong  impulse  to  do,  the  impression  having  been  passed 
on  to  the  hemispheres  and  their  controlling  action 
brought  into  play.  It  is  needless  to  speak  of  the  various 

*  Anatomie  Comparte  Ju  Systeme  Nerveux,  par  Leu  ret  et  Gratiolet 
t  For  examples  of  remarkable  displays  of  intelligence  in  different 

animals,  I  may  refer  to  a  paper  by  me  on  the  "Genesis  of  Mind" 

in  the  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  iS62. 


loo  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

emotions,  nay,  the  veritable  moral  feeling,  displayed  by 
the  dog  and  other  domesticated  animals.  A  single 
reflection  will  show,  what  anatomy  might  lead  us  to  pre- 
dicate, how  limited  must  be  the  range  of  animal  intelli- 
gence now  that  its  development  is  checked  by  the 
dominating  ascendency  of  man  ;  for  how  can  animal  in- 
telligence grow  through  the  ages  in  face  of  a  superior 
hostile  intelligence  which  has  taken  possession  of  the 
earth,  and  is  fast  subduing  all  things  therein  to  its  uses  ? 
If  the  fox,  cunning  as  it  is,  had  but  the  sense  to  learn  to 
climb  a  tree,  like  the  cat,  or  always  to  run  to  earth,  like 
a  rabbit,  men  would  soon  give  up  hunting  it.  But  the 
fox,  like  so  many  men,  cannot  get  out  of  the  accustomed 
groove  of  automatic  thought,  cannot  originate  anything ; 
and,  like  not  a  few  intriguing  plotters,  it  wastes  a  great 
deal  of  low  cunning  in  efforts  which  a  little  larger  view 
of  things  would  render  quite  unnecessary.* 

*  If  the  fox  did  hit  upon  a  discovery  of  the  kind,  it  would  soon  be 
exterminated  as  vermin  and  would  frustrate  the  design  or  final  cause  of 
its  present  existence,  which  presumably  is  to  serve  by  its  sufferings 
for  human  amusement.  Some  persons  have  thought  that  man  was 
the  only  animal  which  found  pleasure  in  inflicting  torture  on  other 
animals  merely  for  amusement,  but  it  would  seem  that  his  next-of- 
kin,  the  monkey,  takes  delight  in  doing  so  when  it  gets  the  chance — 
that  it  will  catch  a  crow  or  pigeon  and  pluck  its  feathers  off  and 
otherwise  torture  it,  highly  gratified  with  its  victim's  struggles  the 
while.  The  cat's  play  with  the  mouse  might  be  thought  perhaps 
not  to  be  an  original  invention,  but  an  accomplishment  first  taught 
by  man,  and  now  inherited  as  an  instinct,  which  is  still,  however, 
educated  in  the  kitten  both  by  man  and  by  its  mother.  It  may  be 
said  truly  that  man  is  the  only  animal  which,  having  imagination 
enough  to  realize  that  its  victim  suffers,  yet  delights  in  inflicting 
suffering  for  his  sport.  Therefore  we  cannot  properly  describe 
fox-hunting  as  brutal  cruelty,  or  as  barbarous  cruelty,  neither  brutes 
nor  barbarians  having  the  imagination  to  realize  the  sufferings  which 
they  inflict,  as  civilized  persons  of  this  age  presumably  have  ;  one 
must  call  it  civilized  cruelty,  meaning  thereby  the  most  sinful  cruelty, 
because  a  sin  against  knowledge  and  right  feeling.  Thus  much  from 
a  moral  point  of  view.  From  a  philosophical  point  of  view  the 


ILJ      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      101 

As  we  ascend  through  the  Mammalian  series,  we  find 
that  not  only  do  the  hemispheres  increase  in  size  by 
gradually  extending  backwards,  but  that  the  grey  surface 
of  them  is  further  increased  by  being  thrown  into  folds  or 
convolutions.  While  the  lower  Mammals  are  entirely 
destitute  of  such  convolutions,  these  are  present,  as  a  rule, 
in  simple  forms  in  the  Ruminantia  and  the  higher  Carni- 
vora  ;  they  are  more  fully  developed  in  the  marine  Mam- 
malia, and  most  fully  developed  in  the  apes  and  in  man. 
It  is  true  that  we  cannot  at  present  unfold  an  exact  re- 
lation between  the  development  of  the  convolutions  and 
the  degree  of  intelligence  in  different  animals ;  for  the 
brains  of  the  ass,  the  sheep,  and  the  ox,  which  do  not 
evince  much  intelligence,  are  more  convoluted  than  those 
of  the  beaver,  the  cat,  and  the  dog,  which  certainly  evince 
more  intelligence.  But  the  relative  size  of  the  animals 
must  be  taken  into  account  in  such  comparison.  The 
volume  of  a  body  such  as  the  brain  which  increases  in 
size  increases  in  greater  proportion  than  the  superficies, 
and  the  latter  again  in  greater  proportion  than  the  diameter. 
Now  in  each  natural  group  or  order  of  Mammalia,  the 
head,  but  especially  the  capacity  of  the  skull,  bears  a 
certain  proportion  to  the  body,  a  proportion  which  re- 
mains pretty  constant  in  different  species ;  the  head  of 
the  tiger  or  of  the  lion,  for  example,  has  about  the  same 
proportion  to  the  body  as  that  of  the  cat's  head  to  its 
body,  although  the  sizes  of  the  animals  are  so  different. 
It  follows  then  that,  as  the  volume  of  the  brain  of  the 
tiger  in  relation  to  the  size  of  the  body  is  the  same  as  in  the 
cat,  and  as  the  larger  the  brain  the  smaller  the  relative 

amusement  is  interesting  ;  for  it  is  a  striking  instance  of  the  survival 
in  man  of  a  primitive  savage  instinct,  testifying  to  an  animal  kinship 
which  he  has  not  yet  outgrown.  Thus  animal  nature  is  avenged 
in  some  sort  for  the  oppression  which  it  suffers  from  human  nature  ; 
since  it  declares  through  man  in  his  pride  of  place,  in  accents  which 
cannot  be  mistaken,  that  after  all  he  is  one  with  his  animal  kind. 
6 


103  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

superficies,  the  superficies  of  the  brain  is  proportionately 
greater  in  the  cat ;  and  that,  consequently,  in  order  to 
get  a  proportionate  extent  of  grey  surface  in  the  tiger, 
this  must  be  convoluted  in  it,  when  it  may  remain  nearly 
smooth  in  the  smaller  animal.  If  in  two  animals  of  equal 
size,  and  of  like  form  of  structure,  the  convolutions  are 
differently  fashioned,  then  it  may  be  said  truly  that  one 
will  be  more  intelligent  than  the  other  in  proportion  as 
its  convolutions  are  more  numerous  and  complicated  and 
the  sulci  deeper.  Comparing  the  brains  of  different 
species  of  dogs  or  of  anthropoid  apes,  it  is  certain,  too, 
that  the  more  intelligent  animals  have  larger  and  more 
convoluted  hemispheres. 

That  proposition  is  true  of  man.  The  intellectual 
differences  which  exist  between  the  Bosjesman,  or  the 
Negro,  and  the  European  are  attended  with  differences 
in  the  extent  and  complication  of  the  nervous  substance 
of  the  brain.  Gratiolet  has  carefully  figured  and  de- 
scribed the  brain  of  the  Hottentot  Venus,  who  was  no 
idiot ;  and  what  is  at  once  striking  in  the  figure  is  the 
simplicity  and  regular  arrangement  of  the  convolutions 
of  the  frontal  lobe;  they  present  an  almost  perfect 
symmetry  in  the  two  hemispheres,  "  such  as  is  never 
exhibited  in  the  normal  brains  of  the  Caucasian  race," 
and  which  involuntarily  recalls  the  regularity  and  sym- 
metry of  the  cerebral  convolutions  in  the  lower  animals. 
The  brain  of  this  Bosjes woman  was,  in  truth,  inferior  to 
that  of  a  white  woman  at  the  normal  stage  of  develop- 
ment :  "  it  could  be  compared  only  with  the  brain  of  a 
white  who  is  idiotic  from  arrest  of  cerebral  development." 
Moreover,  the  differences  between  it  and  the  brain  of  the 
white  are  unquestionably  of  the  same  kind  as,  though 
less  in  degree  than,  those  which  exist  between  the  ape's 
brain  and  that  of  man,  as  Professor  Huxley  has  pointed 
out.*  Mr.  Marshall  has  carefully  examined  a  Bushwoman's 
*  Men's  Place  in  Nature. 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      103 

brain,  and  has  found  like  evidence  of  structural  inferi- 
ority ;  the  primary  convolutions,  though  all  present,  were 
smaller  than  in  the  European,  and  much  less  compli- 
cated ;  the  external  connecting  convolutions  were  still 
more  remarkably  defective ;  the  secondary  sulci  and 
convolutions  were  everywhere  decidedly  less  developed  ; 
there  was  a  deficiency  of  the  system  of  transverse  com- 
missural  fibres ;  and  in  size,  and  in  every  one  of  the 
signs  of  comparative  inferiority,  "  it  leaned,  as  it  were, 
to  the  higher  quadrumanous  forms."*  The  brain  of  the 
Negro  is  superior  to  that  of  the  Bushman,  but  still  it 
does  not  reach  the  level  of  the  white  man's  brain  \  the 
weight  of  the  male  Negro's  brain  is  less  than  that  of  the 
average  European  female ;  and  the  greater  symmetry  of 
its  convolutions,  and  the  narrowness  of  the  hemispheres 
in  front,  are  points  in  which  it  resembles  the  brain  of 
the  orang-outang,  as  even  Tiedemann,  the  Negro's  advo- 
cate, has  admitted. 

Among  Europeans  it  is  found  that,  other  circumstances 
being  alike,  the  size  of  the  brain  bears  a  general  relation 
to  the  mental  power  of  the  individual,  although  apparent 
exceptions  to  the  rule  sometimes  occur.  The  average 
weight  of  the  brain  in  the  educated  class  is  certainly 
greater  than  in  the  uneducated  ;  and  some  carefully-com- 
piled tables  in  a  valuable  paper  by  Dr.  Thurnam  prove 
that,  while  the  average  brain  weight  of  ordinary 
Europeans  is  49  oz.,  in  distinguished  men  it  is  54*6  oz.t 
On  the  other  hand,  the  brain  is  oftentimes  very  small  in 
idiots  ;  the  parts  being  not  only  smaller,  but  less  complex, 
and  the  convolutions  in  particular  being  simpler  and  less 

*  Philosophical  Transactions,  1865. 

t  On  the  Weight  of  the  Human  litain,  by  John  Thurnam,  M.D. ; 
yournal  of  Mental  Science,  April  1866.  Professor  Wagner  has  care- 
fully figured  and  described  the  brains  of  five  very  distinguished  men. 
The  extremely  complex  arrangement  of  the  convolutions  was  most 
remarkable. — The  Convolutions  of  the  Human  Cerebrum,  by  W. 
Turner,  M.B.  1866. 


104  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAP. 

developed.  Mr.  Marshall  found  the  convolutions  of  the 
cerebra  of  the  two  idiots  which  he  examined  to  be  fewer 
in  number  than  in  the  apes,  the  brains  being  in  this 
respect  more  simple  than  the  brain  of  the  gibbon,  and 
approaching  that  of  the  baboon.  In  fact,  there  are  micro- 
cephalic  idiots  which  present  a  complete  series  of  stages 
in  a  gradual  descent  from  man  to  the  apes.  As  a  general 
proposition,  it  is  certainly  true  that  we  find  the  evidence 
of  a  correspondence  between  the  development  of  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  and  of  the  intelligence,  when  we 
examine  the  different  races  or  kinds  of  men,  as  we  do 
when  we  survey  the  scale  of  animal  life.  But  in  making 
comparisons  between  the  brains  of  men  in  the  same 
state  of  civilization  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  quality  has  to  be  taken  into  account  as  well  as 
quantity.  An  increase  in  the  rapidity  of  undulations 
of  vibrating  ether  makes  that  light  which  before  was 
darkness;  and  it  is  conceivable  that,  in  like  manner,  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  vibrations  in  the  nerve-tracts 
of  the  brain  might  convert  stupidity  into  genius.  A  de- 
mented patient,  whose  mind  seemed  nearly  extinguished, 
has  in  some  instances  recovered  temporary  intelligence 
in  a  marvellous  manner  during  the  excitement  of  a  fever ; 
and  persons  who  have  not  been  remarkable  for  mental 
display  will  sometimes  exhibit  surprising  intellectual 
sparks  at  the  commencement  of  an  attack  of  acute 
mania.  It  stands  to  reason  that  the  susceptibilities  of 
nerve  element  to  molecular  vibrations  should  be  de- 
termined by  that  intimate  condition  of  its  nature  which 
the  word  quality  denotes,  and  should  be  affected  after- 
wards by  slight  physical  modifications  of  its  condition. 

As  in  the  series  of  the  manifold  productions  of  her 
creative  art  Nature  has  made  no  violent  leap,  but  has 
passed  by  gentle  gradations  from  one  species  of  animal 
to  another,  and  from  the  highest  animal  to  the  lowest 
man,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  embryonic  development 


1L]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      105 

of  man  should  present  indications  of  the  general  plan.* 
It  admits  of  no  question  that  man  does,  in  the  course  of 
his  development,  pass  through  stages  closely  resembling 
those  through  which  other  vertebrate  animals  pass,  and 
that  these  transitory  conditions  in  him  are  not  unlike  the 
forms  that  are  permanent  in  the  lower  animals;  he 
presents  us  in  the  microcosm  with  an  abstract  of  the 
evolution  which  has  gone  on  through  countless  ages  in 
the  macrocosm.  There  is  a  very  close  morphological 
resemblance  between  the  human  ovum  and  the  lowest 
animals  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  the  microscopic 
Gregarinida  ;t  in  both,  an  outer  membrane  contains  a 
soft  semi-fluid  substance,  at  one  end  of  which  is  a  deli- 
cate vesicle  having  in  it  a  solid  particle  or  spot.  At  the 
earliest  stages  of  its  development  no  human  power  can 
distinguish  the  human  ovum  from  that  of  a  quadruped ; 
scrutinize  it  as  carefully  as  you  will  with  the  highest 

*  "  That  there  should  be  more  species  of  intelligent  beings  above 
us,"  says  Locke,  "  than  there  are  of  visible  or  material  below  us,  is 
probable  to  me  from  hence,  that  in  all  the  corporeal  world  we  see  no 
chasms  or  gaps."  But  how  can  it  be  safe  to  apply  to  the  unseen  a 
generalization  from  the  seen  ?  Between  the  corporeal  and  spiritual 
world  there  is,  at  any  rate,  a  vast  chasm  or  gap. 

t  "The  Gregarinida,"  says  Huxley,  "are  all  microscopic,  and 
any  one  of  them,  leaving  minor  modifications  aside,  may  be  said  to 
consist  of  a  sac,  composed  of  a  more  or  less  structureless,  not  very 
well  denned  membrane,  containing  a  soft  semi-fluid  substance,  in  the 
midst,  or  at  one  end,  of  which  lies  a  delicate  vesicle  ;  in  the  centre 
of  the  latter  is  a  more  solid  particle.  No  doubt  many  persons  will 
be  struck  with  the  close  resemblance  of  the  structure  of  this  body  to 
that  which  is  possessed  by  an  ovum.  You  might  take  the  more 
solid  particle  to  be  the  representative  of  the  germinal  spot,  and  the 
vesicle  to  be  that  of  the  germinal  vesicle ;  while  the  semi-fluid  sar- 
codic  contents  might  be  regarded  as  the  yelk,  and  the  outer  mem- 
brane as  the  vitelline  membrane.  I  do  not  wish  to  strain  the  analogy 
too  far,  but  it  is  at  any  rate  interesting  to  observe  this  close  mor- 
phological resemblance  between  one  of  the  lowest  of  animals  and 
that  form  in  which  all  the  higher  animals  commence  their  existence." 
— Lect.  on  Coinp.  Anal.  1864. 


io6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAT-. 

microscopical  powers,  you  shall  not  be  able  to  say 
whether  it  contains  the  potentialities  of  a  Socrates  or  of 
a  he-goat ;  and,  as  it  proceeds  to  its  destined  end,  it 
passes  through  similar  stages  to  those  through  which 
other  vertebrate  embryos  pass. 

That  which  is  true  of  the  whole  body  is  true  also 
of  the  development  of  the  brain.  The  brain  of  the 
human  foetus  at  the  sixth  week  may  be  described  in 
general  terms  as  consisting  of  a  series  of  vesicles,  the 
foremost  of  which,  a  double  one,  representing  the 
cerebrum,  is  the  smallest,  and  the  hindmost,  represent- 
ing the  cerebellum,  the  largest.  In  front  of  the  latter 
is  the  vesicle  of  the  corpora  quadrigemina  j  and  in 
front  again  of  this,  the  vesicle  of  the  third  ventricle, 
which  contains  also  the  thalami  optici,  and  which, 
as  development  proceeds,  becomes  covered,  as  do  the 
corpora  quadrigemina,  by  the  backward  growth  of  the 
hemispheres  in  front  of  it.  At  this  stage  the  human 
brain  resembles  the  fully-formed  brain  of  the  fish,  more 
closely  the  brain  of  the  fcetal  fish,  in  the  small  proportion 
which  the  cerebral  hemispheres  bear  to  the  other  parts, 
in  the  absence  of  convolutions,  in  the  deficiency  of  com- 
missures, and  in  the  general  simplicity  of  structure. 
Later,  about  the  twelfth  week  of  embryonic  life,  there  is 
a  great  resemblance  to  the  brain  of  the  bird  :  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  are  much  increased  in  size,  and  arch  back 
towards  the  thalami  optici  and  the  corpora  quadrigemina, 
though  there  are  still  no  convolutions  and  the  commis- 
sures are  very  deficient.  Up  to  this  time  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  represent  no  more  than  the  rudiments  of 
the  anterior  lobes ;  they  do  not  yet  completely  cover 
the  thalami  optici,  nor  indeed  pa?  s  the  grade  of  develop- 
ment which  is  permanent  in  the  Marsupial  Mammalia. 
During  the  fourth  and  early  part  of  the  fifth  months,  the 
middle  lobes  develop  backwards  and  cover  the  corpora 
quadrigemina;  and,  subsequently,  the  posterior  lobes 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      107 

sprout  out,  so  to  speak,  and  gradually  extend  backwards 
so  as  to  cover  and  overlap  the  cerebellum.  It  was  upon 
the  erroneous  assumption  that  the  posterior  lobes  were 
peculiar  to  man,  that  Professor  Owen  grounded  his  divi- 
sion of  the  Archencephala ;  but  it  has  now  been  proved 
beyond  doubt  that  the  posterior  lobes  exist  in  the  apes, 
and  that  in  some  apes  they  extend  as  far  back  as  they  do 
in  man.  It  is  easy  to  perceive,  then,  that  an  arrest  of 
development  of  the  human  brain  at  one  stage  or  another 
of  its  formation  may  leave  it  very  much  in  the  condition 
of  an  animal  brain ;  and  it  is  found  in  some  cases,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  congenital  idiots  have  brains  very  like 
those  of  the  monkeys. 

As  man  is  thus  a  sort  of  compendium  of  animal 
nature,  paralleling  nature,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  has  it, 
in  the  cosmography  of  himself,  we  find  exhibited  in  the 
workings  of  his  organism  all  the  different  modes  or  kinds 
of  nervous  function  which  are  met  with  in  the  animal 
kingdom.  The  so-called  irritability  of  tissue,  whereby  it 
reacts  to  a  stimulus  without  the  help  of  nerve,  may  be  of 
the  same  kind  as  that  molecular  energy  of  matter  manifest 
in  the  movements  of  the  humblest  animal :  whether  the 
nerve  ends  outside  the  sarcolemma  of  muscle,  or  within 
it,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  not  distributed  to 
every  particle  of  the  sarcous  element ;  and,  at  any  rate, 
when  all  nervous  influence  is  withdrawn,  an  energy  still 
exists  sufficient  to  produce  rigor  mortis  of  the  muscle.* 

*  It  has  furthermore  been  maintained  by  Bilharz  and  Kiihne  that 
the  nerves  pass  by  continuity  into  the  muscular  substance,  as  in  the 
electric  organs  of  the  fishes  they  pass  continuously  into  the  proto- 
plasm of  the  electric  plates.  The  controversy  respecting  the  manner 
in  which  nerves  end  in  muscles  seems,  then,  likely  to  terminate  in 
the  conclusion  that  they  do  not  end  at  all,  but  pass  by  continuity  of 
substance  into  the  sarcous  elements.  The  observations  of  Kiihne 
and  Rouget  prove  that  the  nerve  fibre,  reduced  to  its  axis  cylinder, 
penetrates  the  sarcolemma,  and  is  lost  The  nervous  filaments  of 
insects  cannot  sometimes  be  distinguished  from  the  other  elements 


loS  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  simplest  mode  of  nervous  action  in  man,  compar- 
able to  that  of  the  lowest  animals  that  possess  nerve,  is 
exhibited  by  the  scattered  ganglionic  cells  belonging  to 
the  sympathetic  system  which  are  concerned  in  certain 
organic  processes.  The  heart's  action,  for  example,  is 
due  to  the  ganglionic  cells  dispersed  through  its  sub- 
stance ;  Meissner  has  shown  that  nerve-cells  disseminated 
through  the  tissues  of  the  intestines  govern  their  motions ; 
and  Lister  thinks  it  probable  that  cells  scattered  in  the 
tissues  preside  over  the  contractions  of  the  arteries,  and 
over  the  remarkable  diffusion  of  the  pigment  granules 
which  takes  place  in  the  stellate  cells  of  the  frog's  skin. 
The  separate  elements  of  the  tissue  are  co-ordinated  by 
the  ganglionic  nerve-cells  of  the  sympathetic  system ; 
and  these  co-ordinating  centres,  again,  are  found  to  be 
under  the  control  of  the  cerebro-spinal  centres.  In  the 
spinal  cord  the  ganglionic  nerve  cells  are  collected 
together,  and  so  united  that  groups  of  them  and  con- 
nected groups  of  them  become  independent  centres  of 
combined  movements,  simultaneous  and  successive,  in 
answer  to  stimuli ;  this  arrangement  representing  the 
entire  nervous  system  of  those  animals  in  which  no 
organs  of  special  sense  have  yet  appeared.  The  stimulus 
conveyed  by  the  afferent  nerve  does  not  go  directly 
across  the  cord  and  produce  the  first  movement  at  hand, 
but  excites  the  energies  of  a  plexus  of  interconnected 
cells,  which  energies  are  expressed  ultimately  in  the 
efferent  or  motor  effect ;  not  otherwise  than,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  a  stimulus  to  the  brain  excites  energies 
in  the  plexuses  of  its  convolutions  which  appear  in  con- 
sciousness as  reflection  and  issue  finally  in  voluntary 
movement  .  ^ 

Still  higher  in  the  scale  of  the  nervous  system,  the  sen- 

by  means  of  the  m'croscope.  Pfliiger  has  discovered  that  the  nerves 
to  the  glands  penetrate  the  walls  of  the  cells,  and,  as  he  believes, 
end  in  the  nuclei. 


ii.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      109 

sory  ganglia,  consisting  of  multitudes  of  cells  differentiated 
by  their  special  connections,  are  clustered  together,  forming 
a  very  important  part  of  the  brain  of  man,  while  in  many 
animals,  as  already  seen,  they  constitute  the  whole  of  the 
brain.  In  the  cerebral  hemispheres  there  is  still  greater 
specialization  and  complication  Of  structure  with  corre- 
sponding exaltation  of  function;  and,  conformably  to  its 
highest  degree  in  man,  there  are  in  him  the  highest  and 
the  most  complex  manifestations  of  mental  function.  In 
the  human  organism,  then,  is  summed  up  the  animal 
kingdom,  which  actually  presents  us  with  a  sort  of  ana- 
lysis of  it ;  for  in  the  functions  of  man  we  observe,  as  in 
a  microcosm,  an  integration  and  harmonious  co-ordina- 
tion of  different  vital  actions  which  are  separately 
displayed  by  subordinate  members  of  the  animal 
kingdom. 

In  dealing  with  the  function  of  the  nervous  system  in 
man,  it  is,  then,  most  necessary  to  distinguish  different 
nervous  centres : — 

1.  The  primary  centres,  or  ideational  centres,  consti- 
tuted by  the  grey   matter  of  the  convolutions   of  the 
hemispheres.     They  are  superordinate  to 

2.  The  secondary  nervous  centres,  or  sensory  centres, 
constituted  by  the  collections  of  grey  matter  that   lie 
between  the  decussation  of  the  pyramids  and  the  floors 
of  the  lateral  ventricles.     These  are  subordinate  to  the 
primary  and  superordinate  to 

3.  The  tertiary  nervous   centres,  or  centres  of  reflex 
action,  constituted   mainly  by   the   grey  matter   of  the 
spinal  cord  ;  which  again  are  superordinate  to 

4.  The   organic  nervous    centres,   as  we  might   call 
them,  belonging  to  the  sympathetic  system.     They  con- 
sist of  a  set  of  ganglionic  bodies  distributed  mainly  over 
the  viscera,  and  connected  with  one  another  and  with 
the  spinal  centres  by  internuntiant  cords. 

Each   distinct   centre  is  subordinated  to  the  centre 


no  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

immediately  above  it,  but  is  at  the  same  time  capable  of 
determining  and  maintaining  certain  movements  of  its 
own  without  the  intervention  of  its  supreme  centre. 
For  example,  the  rhythmical  contractions  of  the  heart 
are  kept  up  by  the  ganglia  distributed  through  its  sub- 
stance, and  accordingly  continue  for  a  time  after  the 
removal  of  the  organ  from  the  body.  But  these  local 
powers  are  not  left  uncontrolled :  terminal  branches  of 
the  vagus  nerve,  or  rather  branches  of  a  motor  nerve 
called  the  spinal  accessory,  which  go  with  the  vagus  to 
the  heart,  are  connected  in  some  way  with  the  ganglia ; 
and  when  the  vagus  is  irritated  the  ganglia  are  controlled 
and  cease  to  act  upon  the  heart,  which  comes  to  a  stand- 
still in  a  relaxed  condition.  The  organization  of  the 
entire  nervous  system  is  such  that  a  due  independent 
local  action  is  compatible  with  the  proper  control  of  a 
superior  central  authority.  The  ganglionic  cells  of  the 
sympathetic  co-ordinate  the  energy  of  the  separate  ele- 
ments of  the  tissue  in  which  they  are  placed,  and  thus 
represent  the  simplest  form  of  a  principle  of  individua- 
tion;*  through  the  cells  of  the  spinal  centre  the  func- 
tions of  the  different  organic  centres  are  so  co-ordinated 
as  to  have  their  subordinate  but  essential  place  in  the 
movements  of  animal  life — and  herein  is  witnessed  a 
further  and  higher  individuation ;  the  spinal  centres  are 
similarly  controlled  by  the  sensory  centres ;  and  these, 
in  their  turn,  are  subordinate  to  the  controlling  action  of 
the  cerebral  hemispheres,  and  especially  to  the  action 
which,  revealing  itself  in  consciousness  as  will,  represents 
the  most  complete  co-ordination  of  the  functions  of  the 
hemispheres,  and  "is  the  highest  display  of  the  principle 
of  individuation.  The  more  unlike  the  parts  in  any 
animal  and  the  more  complex  their  subordination,  the 

*  Coleridge,  in  his  Hints  towards  the  Formation  of  a  Comprehen- 
sive Theory  of  Life"  takes  from  Schclling  the  definition — "Life  is 
the  principle  of  Individuation." 


li.]       THE  MIND  A.\D  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      Ill 

higher  and  the  more  perfect  it  is.*  Were  it  not  well  if 
man  in  his  social  life  could  contrive  to  imitate  this  excel- 
lent organization? 

Most  important  and  varied  functions  having  been 
ascribed  to  nerve-cells,  it  may  be  asked  :  on  what  evi- 
dence do  the  statements  rest?  On  the  evidence  of 
anatomical  investigation,  experiments  upon  animals,  and 
physiological  and  pathological  researches. 

(a)  Anatomical  Evidence. — It  is  cenainly  not  possible 
to  trace  every  nerve  fibre  to  its  connection  with  a  cell, 
and  until  lately  no  such  connection  had  been  distinctly 
seen ;  but  it  has  now  been  observed  in  many  instances, 
and  most  investigators  believe  that  neither  in  the  brain 
nor  in  the  spinal  cord  does  there  exist  an  isolated  apolar 
nerve  cell ;  such,  if  supposed  to  be  seen,  being  in  reality 
one  which  has  had  its  processes  torn  away,  or  a  young 
one  that  has  not  yet  formed  its  connections,  or  not  being 
a  nerve-cell  at  all,  but  a  connective  tissue  corpuscle. 
This  is  an  inference  which  has  scarcely  less  certainty  than 
an  observed  fact ;  as  Goethe  has  said,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  travel  round  the  world  in  order  to  feel  sure  that 
the  heaven  above  is  everywhere  blue.t 

Granting  the  constant  connection  of  the  fibre  with  the 
cell,  are  the  ganglionic  cells  so  numerous  and  so  arranged 
as  to  render  it  conceivable  that  they  can  minister  ade- 
quately to  the  manifold  and  complex  manifestations  of 
our  mental  life  ?  Most  certainly  they  are  :  Dr.  Lockhart 

*  After  speaking  of  an  organism  as  a  collection  of  individual 
elements,  Goethe  goes  on  to  say: — "Je  unvolkommener  das 
Geschopf  ist  desto  mehr  sind  diese  Theile  einander  gleich  oder 
ahnlich,  und  desto  mehr  gleichen  sie  dem  Ganzen.  Je  volkommeuer 
das  Geschopf  wird,  desto  unahnlicher  werden  die  Theile  einander. 
Je  ahnlicher  die  Theile  einander  sind,  desto  weniger  sind  sie  einander 
subordinirt.  Die  Subordination  der  Theile  deutet  auf  ein  volkom- 
meneres  Geschopf." 

\  Um  zu  begreifen  das  dcr  Himniel  iibcrall  blau  ist,  braucht  man 
nicht  um  die  Welt  zu  reisen. 


112  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Clarke's  careful  and  valuable  researches  into  the  struc- 
ture of  the  cortical  layers  of  the  hemispheres  reveal  a 
variety,  delicacy,  and  complexity  of  constitution  such 
as  answer  to  the  varied  and  complex  manifestations  of 
mind.  The  following  concise  summary  of  those  import- 
ant researches,  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Lockhart 
Clarke's  kindness,  will  indicate  exactly  how  the  com- 
plexity of  physical  structure  agrees  with  the  complexity 
of  mental  function  : — 

"  In  the  human  brain  most  of  the  convolutions,  when 
properly  examined,  may  be  seen  to  consist  of  at  least 
seven  distinct  and  concentric  layers  of  nervous  substance, 
which  are  alternately  paler  and  darker  from  the  circum- 
ference to  the  centre.  The  laminated  structure  is  most 
strongly  marked  at  the  extremity  of  the  posterior  lobe. 
In  this  situation  all  the  nerve-cells  are  small,  but  differ 
considerably  in  shape,  and  are  much  more  abundant  in 
some  layers  than  in  others.  In  the  superficial  layer, 
which  is  pale,  they  are  round,  oval,  fusiform,  and  angular, 
but  not  numerous.  The  second  and  darker  layer  is 
densely  crowded  with  cells  of  a  similar  kind,  in  company 
with  others  that  are  fyriform  and  pyramidal,  and  lie 
with  their  tapering  ends  either  toward  the  surface  or 
parallel  with  it,  in  connection  with  fibres  which  run  in 
corresponding  directions.  The  broader  ends  of  the  pyra- 
midal cells  give  off  two,  three,  four,  or  more  processes, 
which  run  partly  towards  the  central  white  axis  of  the 
convolution  and  in  part  horizontally  along  the  plane  of 
the  layer,  to  be  continuous,  like  those  at  the  opposite 
ends  of  the  cells,  with  nerve  fibres  running  in  different 
directions. 

"  The  third  layer  is  of  a  much  paler  colour.  It  is 
crossed,  however,  at  right  angles  by  narrow  and  elon- 
gated groups  of  small  cells  and  nuclei  of  the  same  general 
appearance  as  those  of  the  preceding  layer.  These 
groups  are  separated  from  each  other  by  bundles  of 


II.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      113 


fibres  radiating  towards  the  surface  from  the  central 
white  axis  of  the  convolution,  and  together  with  them 
form  a  beautiful  fan-like  structure. 

"The  fourth  layer  also  contains  elongated  groups  of 
small  cells  and  nuclei,  radiating  at  right  angles  to  its 
plane ;  but  the  groups  are  broader,  more  regular,  and, 
together  with  the  bundles  of  fibres  between  them,  pre- 
sent a  more  distinctly  fan-like  arrangement. 

"  The  fifth  layer  is  again  paler  and  somewhat  white. 
It  contains,  however,  cells  and  nuclei  which  have  a 
general  resemblance  to  those  of  the  preceding  layers, 
but  they  exhibit  only  a  faintly  radiating  arrangement. 

"  The  sixth  and  most  internal  layer  is  reddish-grey. 
It  not  only  abounds  with  cells  like  those  already  de- 
scribed, but  contains  others  that  are  rather  larger.  It 
is  only  here  and  there  that  the  cells  are  collected  into 
elongated  groups  which  give  the  appearance  of  radia- 
tions. On  its  under  side  it  gradually  blends  with  the 
central  white  axis  of  the  convolution,  into  which  its  cells 
are  scattered  for  some  distance. 

"  The  seventh  layer  is  this  central  white  stem  or  axis 
of  the  convolution.  On  every  side  it  gives  off  bundles 
of  fibres,  which  diverge  in  all  directions,  and  in  a  fan- 
like  manner,  towards  the  surface  through  the  several  grey 
layers.  As  they  pass  between  the  elongated  and  radiating 
groups  of  cells  in  the  inner  grey  layers,  some  of  them 
become  continuous  with  the  processes  of  the  cells  in  the 
same  section  or  plane,  but  others  bend  round  and  run  hori- 
zontally, both  in  a  transverse  and  longitudinal  direction 
(in  reference  to  the  course  of  the  entire  convolution), 
and  with  various  degrees  of  obliquity.  While  the 
bundles  themselves  are  by  this  means  reduced  in  size, 
their  component  fibres  become  finer  in  proportion  as 
they  traverse  the  layers  towards  the  surface,  in  conse- 
quence, apparently,  of  branches  which  they  give  off  to 
be  connected  with  cells  in  their  course.  Those  which 


114  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

reach  the  outer  grey  layer  are  reduced  to  the  finest 
dimensions,  and  form  a  close  network  with  which  the 
nuclei  and  cells  are  in  connection. 

"  Besides  these  fibres,  which  diverge  from  the  central 
white  axis  of  the  convolution,  another  set,  springing 
from  the  same  source,  converge,  or  rather  curve  inwards 
from  opposite  sides,  to  form  arches  along  some  of  the 
grey  layers.  These  arciform  fibres  run  in  differen 
planes — transversely,  obliquely,  and  longitudinally — and 
appear  to  be  partly  continuous  with  those  of  the  diver- 
gent set  which  bend  round,  as  already  stated,  to  follow  a 
similar  course.  All  these  fibres  establish  an  infinite 
number  of  communications  in  every  direction  between  dif- 
ferent parts  of  each  convolution,  between  different  convo- 
lutions, and  between  these  and  the  central  white  substance. 

"  The  other  convolutions  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
differ  from  those  at  the  extremities  of  the  posterior  lobes, 
not  only  by  the  comparative  faintness  of  their  several 
layers,  but  also  by  the  appearance  of  some  of  their  cells. 
We  have  already  seen  that,  at  the  extremity  of  the 
posterior  lobe,  the  cells  of  ALL  the  layers  are  small  and 
of  nearly  uniform  size,  the  inner  layer  only  containing 
some  that  are  a  little  larger.  But,  on  proceeding  forward 
from  this  point,  the  convolutions  are  found  to  contain  a 
number  of  cells  of  a  much  larger  kind.  A  section,  for 
instance,  taken  from  a  convolution  at  the  vertex,  contains 
a  number  of  large,  triangular,  oval,  and  pyramidal  cells, 
scattered  at  various  intervals  through  the  two  inner 
bands  of  arciform  fibres  and  the  grey  layer  between  them, 
in  company  with  a  multitude  of  smaller  cells  which 
differ  but  little  from  those  at  the  extremity  of  the 
posterior  lobe.  The  pyramidal  cells  are  very  peculiar. 
Their  bases  are  quadrangular,  directed  towards  the  cen- 
tral white  substance,  and  each  gives  off  four  or  more 
processes  which  run  partly  towards  the  centre  to  be 
continuous  with  fibres  radiating  from  the  central  white 


II.]      THE  MfND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYS7*EM.      115 

axis,  and  partly  parallel  with  the  surface  of  the  convolution 
to  be  continuous  with  arciform  fibres.  The  processes  fre- 
quently subdivide  into  minute  branches,  which  form  part 
of  the  network  between  them.  The  opposite  end  of  the 
cell  tapers  gradually  into  a  straight  process,  which  runs 
directly  towards  the  surface  of  the  convolution,  and  may 
be  traced  to  a  surprising  distance,  giving  off  minute 
branches  in  its  course,  and  becoming  lost,  like  the  others, 
in  the  surrounding  network.  Many  of  these  cells,  as 
wells  as  others  of  a  triangular,  oval,  and  pyriform  shape, 
are  as  large  as  those  in  the  anterior  grey  substance  of 
the  spinal  cord. 

"  In  other  convolutions  the  vesicular  structure  is  again 
somewhat  modified  Thus,  in  the  surface  convolution  of 
the  great  longitudinal  fissure,  on  a  level  with  the  anterior 
extremity  of  the  corpus  callosum,  and  therefore  corres- 
ponding to  what  is  called  the  superior  frontal  convolu- 
tion, all  the  three  inner  layers  of  grey  substance  are 
thronged  with  pyramidal,  triangular,  and  oval  cells  of 
considerable  size  and  in  much  greater  number  than  in 
the  situation  last  mentioned.  Between  these,  as  usual,  is 
a  multitude  of  nuclei  and  smaller  cells.  The  inner 
orbital  convolution,  situated  on  the  outer  side  of  the 
olfactory  bulb,  contains  a  vast  multitude  of  pyriform, 
pyramidal,  and  triangular  cells,  arranged  in  very  regular 
order,  but  none  that  are  so  large  as  many  of  those  found 
in  the  convolutions  at  the  vertex.  Again,  in  the  insula, 
or  island  of  Reil,  which  overlies  the  extra- ventricular 
portion  of  the  corpus  striatum,  a  great  number  of  the 
cells  are  somewhat  larger,  and  the  general  aspect  of  the 
tissue  is  rather  different  A  further  variety  is  presented 
by  the  temporo-sphenoidal  lobe,  which  covers  the  insula 
and  is  continuous  with  it ;  for  while  in  the  superficial 
and  deep  layers  the  cells  are  rather  small,  the  middle 
layer  is  crowded  with  pyramidal  and  oval  cells  of 
considerable  and  rather  uniform  size.  But  not  only  in 


u6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

different  convolutions  does  the  structure  assume,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  a  variety  of  modifications,  but  even 
different  parts  of  the  same  convolution  may  vary  with 
regard  either  to  the  arrangement  or  the  relative  size  of 
their  cells. 

"  Between  the  cells  of  the  convolutions  in  man  and 
those  of  the  ape  tribe  I  could  not  perceive  any  difference 
whatever ;  but  they  certainly  differ  in  some  respects  from 
those  of  the  larger  Mammalia — from  those,  for  instance, 
of  the  ox,  sheep,  or  cat."* 

Dr.  Herbert  Major  has  recently  made  a  careful  ex- 
amination of  the  minute  structure  of  the  convolutions  of 
the  brain  of  the  Chacma  Baboon,  and  he  finds  that  the 
general  characters  thereof  agree  with  those  that  are  met 
with  in  the  human  brain — that  the  forms  and  relations  of 
the  cells  show  no  variation.  There  was  only  one  doubt- 
ful exception  to  this  general  rule,  and  that  was  the  second 
layer  of  the  frontal  and  parietal  convolutions,  the  large 
cells  of  which  are  more  rare  in  the  baboon  than  in  man. 
Whether  such  predominance  of  large  cells  in  man  is 

*  In  the  first  edition  of  this  work  an  error  occurred  in  the  brief 
abstract  made  of  Dr.  Clarke's  investigations,  as  they  appeared  in  the 
Proceedings  oftJu  Royal  Society,  vol.  xii.  1863.  I  regret  the  mistake 
the  less,  as  it  has  been  the  occasion  of  my  receiving,  from  Dr. 
Clarke's  own  pen,  the  above  clear  and  concise  description  of  his 
latest  researches. 

Schroeder  van  der  Kolk  found  a  different  structure  of  the  grey 
substance  of  the  convolutions  in  the  anterior  and  posterior  lobes  of 
the  dog  and  the  rabbit :  in  the  anterior  lobes  of  the  rabbit  there  are 
bundles  of  fibres,  with  cells,  mostly  tripolar,  between  them  ;  in  the 
posterior  lobes  there  is  a  regular  series  of  pedunculated  cells,  which 
are  placed  close  to  one  another,  like  organ  pipes ;  there  are  also 
single  larger  cells.  As  the  result  of  his  investigations,  continued 
through  an  industrious  lifetime,  he  states  positively  that,  wherever 
there  are  differences  of  function,  there  differences  of  structure  and 
composition  and  connexion  do  exist;  "microscopical  investigation 
has  established  this  in  the  completest  manner." — Die  Pathologie  und 
T/ifrafie  der  Geisteskrankheiten  auf  Anatomisch-Physiologisclur 
GrtinJ/a°e.  Von  J.  L.  C.  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk.  1863. 


ii.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      117 

connected  with  superior  function  in  him,  must  of  course 
be  entirely  conjectural.  Dr.  Major  was,  however,  led 
by  a  close  comparison  of  numerous  sections  of  brain  to 
the  distinct  conclusion  that  in  man  the  number  of  the 
cell  processes,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  extent  of  their 
connections,  are  greater  than  in  the  baboon ;  and  he  be- 
lieves that  the  more  numerous  and  complex  anastomoses 
have  relation  to  the  superior  functional  activity  in  man.* 

Assuredly  we  are  lost  in  the  vastly  intricate  and 
complicated  mechanism  of  cerebral  cells  and  fibres 
when  we  attempt  to  trace  the  way  in  which  function 
goes  on,  but  we  may  perhaps  realise  how  sufficient 
or  more  than  sufficient  for  all  the  variety  of  our  mental 
processes  is  the  multitude  of  cells  and  extremely 
delicate  fibres  which  constitute  the  convolutions.  It 
is  certain  that  in  one  cubic  inch  of  convolution  there 
would  be  found,  if  they  could  be  counted,  several 
hundred  thousand  nerve-cells  and  fibres,  and  in  all 
the  convolutions  cells  more  in  number  than  the  stars 
of  heaven ;  and  when  we"  compare  these  numbers  with 
the  number  of  words  made  use  of  by  the  most  fertile 
writers,  we  shall  perhaps  be  tempted  to  think  that  only  a 
small  portion  of  our  intellectual  instruments  are  actually 
utilized.f  Out  of  a  possible  number  of  English  words 
amounting  to  ninety  or  a  hundred  thousand,  Shakespeare 
uses  about  fifteen  thousand,  Milton  about  eight  thousand, 
and  an  agricultural  labourer  about  three  hundred. 

Complex,  however,  as  is  the  structure  of  the  convolu- 
tions, we  find  the  same  type  as  in  the  spinal  cord — 
namely,  the  nerve-cell  forming  the  junction  of  fibres 

*  "  Observations  on  the  Brain  of  the  Chacma  Baboon. " — Journ.tl 
of  Menial  Science,  January,  1876. 

\  "  A  portion  of  grey  matter  upon  the  surface  of  a  convolution, 
not  larger  than  the  head  of  a  very  small  pin,  will  contain  portions 
of  many  thousands  of  nerve-fibres,  the  distal  ramifications  of  which 
may  be  in  very  distant  and  different  parts  of  the  body." — Bioplasm, 
p.  321.  Dr.  Beale,  2nd  Ed. 


li8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

and  of  other  cells;   this   structure  being  multiplied  in 
the  brain  in  innumerable  plexuses.     Moreover,  we  find 
suitable   anatomical  provision  for  uniting  in    common 
function   different   parts   of  the  same  convolution,  dif- 
ferent convolutions  of  the  same  hemisphere,  and  corre- 
sponding convolutions  of  the  two  hemispheres.     Besides 
the    fibres    which  are   a   continuation    of   the    central 
white  axis,  and   which   conduct  to  and  from  the  grey 
matter,  there  are  the  commissural  fibres  connecting  cor- 
responding parts  of  the  two  hemispheres  and  effecting 
simultaneous  or  successive  function  of  these  parts ;  and 
there  are  also  the  arciform  fibres  passing  between  different 
parts  of  the  same  hemisphere  and  combining  in  function 
both  adjacent  and  more  distant  convolutions.     Anatomy 
clearly  reveals  a  structure  destined  to  subserve  varied 
and  intimate  intercommunion  of  function.     And  we  may 
conceive,  as  we  survey  these  manifold  uniting  fibres  and 
the  innumerable  multitude  of  junction-making  cells,  how 
it  happens  that  the  functions  of  the  cortical  layers  are 
soon  restored  after  a  partial  destruction  thereof;  in  the 
grey  matter  of  these  layers,  as  in  the  grey  matter  of  the 
spinal  cord,  it  is  probable  that  equivalent  parts  connected 
in  the  most  intimate  and  complex  way  may  take  the 
place  of  each  other  functionally.     We  may  conceive,  also, 
how  it  is  that  with  two  distinct  hemispheres  we  have  not 
a  divided  but  a  single  consciousness  ;  one  hemisphere  is 
so  intimately  united  by  commissural  fibres  with  the  other 
that  they  are  bound  together  in  function  and  their  con- 
sciousness is  made  one ;  were  the  cortical  centres  of  the 
brains  of  two  men  as  closely  united  by  commissural 
fibres  as  are  the  two  hemispheres  of  one  brain,  they 
perhaps  would  not  have  a  double  but  a  single  conscious- 
ness.    The  phenomena  of  hemiplegia  prove  that  when 
two  corresponding  motor  centres,  which  have  to  do  with 
opposite  parts  of  the  body,  lie  near  together  and  are 
closely  united  anatomically,  and  have  been  accustomed 


II.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      119 

to  act  together  functionally,  their  functions  are  coinci- 
dent, and  one  will  do  the  work  of  the  other  when  the 
latter  is  damaged. 

Although  there  are  observable  differences  in  the  size 
and  configuration  of  the  cells  of  the  cortical  layers,  as  of 
the  cells  of  other  centres,  yet  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot 
at  present  penetrate  those  intimate  special  differences  in 
constitution  or  composition,  or  trace  those  special  con- 
nections, which  the  variety  of  their  functions  implies. 
These  essential  differences  of  constitution  are  not  such, 
indeed,  as  the  microscope  is  ever  likely  to  reveal ;  for 
they  probably  depend  on  the  intimate  chemical  composi- 
tion, and  are  not  likely,  even  if  we  could  isolate  cells  as 
required,  to  be  disclosed  until  chemistry  has  arrived  at 
microscopical  application,  or  until  some  means  has  been 
discovered  of  penetrating  the  molecular  constitution  of 
nerve  element.  Those  who  may  be  disposed  to  think 
it  impossible  that  such  important  constitutional  differ- 
ences should  exist  in  so  small  a  compass,  might  reflect 
with  advantage  on  the  various  undetectable  conditions 
which  may  confessedly  exist  in  the  minutest  organic 
matter ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  delicate  microscopic  sper- 
matozoon, or  in  the  intangible  virus  of  a  fever.  And  yet 
it  is  from  the  conjunction  of  a  minute  spermatozoon 
with  a  minute  germinal  vesicle  that  are  produced  the 
muscles,  vessels,  nerves,  and  brain — the  intellectual 
organs  of  a  Socrates  or  a  Caesar.  The  single  sperm-cell, 
integrating  the  qualities  of  generations  of  male  and 
female  ancestors,  unites  with  the  germ-cell,  integrating 
in  like  manner  the  qualities  of  generations  of  male  and 
female  ancestors,  and  gives  birth  to  a  new  organic 
product  which,  minute  as  it  is,  contains  in  latent  form 
all  the  potentialities,  and  displays  actually  in  evolution 
many  of  the  qualities,  of  ancestors  on  both  sides,  and 
furthermore  evinces  new  qualities  as  a  result  of  the 
organic  combination ;  not  otherwise  than  as  a  chemical 


120  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

compound  evinces  properties  that  are  unlike  those  of 
its  constituents.  There  is  nothing  extravagant  in  the 
supposition  that  a  single  nerve-cell  may  contain  like 
potentiahies.*  Consider,  again,  the  infinite  littleness  of 
the  odorous  particles  that  affect  the  smell,  and,  more 
wonderful  still,  the  marvellous  discriminating  suscep- 
tibility of  sense  to  these  undetected  agents.  The  ex- 
quisite minuteness  and  consummate  delicacy  of  the 
operations  going  on  in  the  most  intimate  recesses  of 
nature  are  even  more  striking  and  wonderful  than  the 
vastness  and  grandeur  with  which  the  astronomer  is 
concerned.  "  What  the  immensity  is  to  the  astronomer 
or  geologist,"  says  Sir  H.  Holland,  "such  are  these 
infinitely  small  dimensions  of  matter  in  space  to  the 
physiologist."  Of  what  may  happen  in  a  world  into 
which  human  senses  have  not  yet  found  means  of  en- 
tering we  are  no  better  entitled  to  speak  than  the 
blind  man  is  to  talk  of  the  appearance  of  objects. 
In  such  matter  it  would  be  more  wise  to  adopt  Ter- 
tullian's  maxim,  "  Credo  quia  impossible  est,"  than  that 
which  is  so  much  favoured  by  the  conceit  of  human 
ignorance — that  a  thing  is  impossible  because  it  ap- 
pears to  be  inconceivable.t 

(b)  Experiments  on  Animals  have  distinctly   proved 

*  It  is  worth  remark  that  similar  complex  chemical  compounds 
have  been  found  in  nerve-substance  and  in  the  semen  and  the  ovum, 
calling  to  mind  the  statement  of  Alcmxon,  an  ancient  writer  on 
medical  subjects,  that  a  drop  of  semen  is  a  drop  of  brain. 

t  The  latest  speculations  concerning  the  actual  constitution  of 
atoms  render  it  probable  that  even  chemical  atoms  are  really  very 
complicated  structures,  and  that  in  them  there  are  complex  intestine 
motions  of  which  we  have  not  the  least  conception.  "An  atom  ol 
pure  iron  is  probably  a  vastly  more  complicated  system  than  that  of 
the  planets  and  their  satellites." — JEVONS,  Principles  of  Science. 
The  smallest  particle  of  solid  matter  will  consist  of  a  number  of  such 
systems  united  in  regular  order,  the  problem  of  their  forces  and 
motions  being  beyond  the  reach  of  our  mathematical  powers,  even 
were  the  systems  accessible  to  observation. 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      121 

the  differences  between  the  functions  of  the  ganglionic 
cells  that  constitute  the  principal  different  nervous 
centres ;  but  such  results  will  more  properly  find  their 
place  afterwards.  Let  it  suffice  here  to  say  that  the 
sight  of  an  animal  may  be  destroyed  by  injury  to  its 
corpora  quadrigemina  as  surely  as  by  burning  out  its 
eyes.  By  the  experiments  of  Fritsch  and  Hitzig,  which 
have  been  repeated  and  extended  by  Dr.  Ferrier,  some- 
thing has  lately  been  done  towards  distinguishing  the 
functions  of  different  convolutions. 

(c)  Physiological  Evidence. — The  study  of  the  plan  of 
development  of  the  nervous  system  through  the  animal 
kingdom,  with  the  corresponding  progress  in  complexity 
of  function,  undoubtedly  furnishes  the  best  testimony  in 
favour  of  differences  in  the  constitution  and  function  of 
the  nerve  centres.  That  evidence  has  already  been  suffi- 
ciently set  forth. 

The  hopeless  vanity  of  all  discussions  concerning 
infinite  or  absolute  truth  might  well  have  been  made 
manifest  by  this  physiological  reflection  :  that  our  pei- 
ception  of  external  nature  is  the  effect  which  the  object 
produces,  through  an  adapted  medium,  in  certain  of  om 
central  nerve-cells,  an  effect  on  which  we  can  exercise  no 
influence ;  it  is,  as  Hobbes  puts  it,  "  but  an  apparition 
unto  us  of  the  motion,  agitation,  or  alteration,  which  the 
object  worketh  in  the  brain,  or  spirits,  or  some  internal 
substance  of  the  head."  Excite  that  condition  of  the 
central  cell  otherwise  than  by  the  stimulus  from  without, 
the  perception  does  not  fail  to  ensue :  a  blow  on  the 
eye  produces  flashes  of  light ;  on  closing  the  eyes  after 
looking  at  the  sun  a  spectrum  of  it  remains,  which,  as  it 
slowly  fades  away,  may  be  brightened  and  darkened 
alternately  for  a  time  by  pressing  the  eye  and  removing 
the  pressure  ;  luminous  spectra  are  sometimes  seen  after 
complete  destruction  of  the  retina  ;  a  disturbance  of  the 
circulation  in  the  auditory  ganglia  gives  rise  to  noises  in 


122  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  ears ;  an  insane  person  who  is  quite  deaf  will  some- 
times hear  what  he  believes  to  be  the  voices  of  persons  ad- 
dressing him,  and  will  dispute  with  them;  in  fact,  all  the 
senses  may  be  excited  subjectively.  The  reason  is  evi- 
dent :  because  the  perception  depends  upon  the  nature 
of  the  special  centres  and  the  mechanism  by  which  the 
stimulus  is  conveyed  to  them.  The  idea  in  the  mind  is 
the  result  of  an  action  excited  in  the  nerve  centres ;  the 
external  impression  not  being  conveyed  to  them,  but 
exciting  the  physiological  property  of  the  nerve,  which 
thereupon  gives  rise  in  them  to  the  special  effect. 
Accordingly,  the  effect  of  any  stimulus  capable  of  affecting 
one  of  the  special  senses  is,  as  Muller  pointed  out,  of  the 
same  kind  as  that  produced  by  the  proper  stimulus  of  the 
particular  sense  :  thus  the  effect  of  the  electric  stimulus 
on  the  optic  ganglia  is  to  cause  a  sensation  of  light ;  on 
the  olfactory  nerves,  some  kind  of  smell ;  on  the  gusta- 
tory nerves,  some  kind  of  taste.  In  like  manner,  whether 
irritation  of  a  nerve  shall  produce  a  muscular  move- 
ment, a  secretion,  or  a  sensation,  depends  not  upon 
the  constitution  of  the  nerve,  nor  upon  the  means  of 
irritation,  but  upon  its  connections — whether  it  is  con- 
nected with  a  muscle,  gland,  or  sensory  centre.  It  is 
clear  then  that  the  qualities  of  our  sensations  do  not 
represent  corresponding  qualities  in  objects — that  our 
senses  do  not  give  us  anything  like  an  exact  impression 
of  the  outer  world.  Whether  the  rays  of  the  sun  appear 
to  us  as  colour  or  heat  depends  not  upon  any  properties 
of  colour  or  heat  in  them,  but  simply  upon  the  fact 
whether  they  stimulate  the  fibres  of  the  optic  nerve  or 
those  of  the  skin  ;  and  of  what  colour  rays  of  light  shall 
appear  to  us  will  depend  entirely  upon  the  length  of  the 
undulations,  those  of  red  being  the  longest,  those  of 
violet  the  shortest  If  the  nerve  fibres  which  answer 
to  the  undulations  of  what  appears  in  us  as  red  were 
wanting  in  our  eyes,  we  should  not  have  the  least 


IL]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      123 

conception  of  red.*  That  man  is  by  nature  thus  limited 
to  the  reception  of  certain  special  impressions  through  a 
few  avenues,  proves  how  limited  must  be  his  knowledge 
at  the  best :  it  may  well  be,  of  a  truth  is,  that  there  are 
many  things  in  nature  of  which  he  has  not,  and  cannot 
have,  the  least  apprehension  ;  and  that  a  new  sense  con- 
ferred upon  him  might  alter  the  whole  aspect  of  the 
universe  and  transform  entirely  the  character  of  that 
which  he  calls  knowledge. 

What  is  true  of  the  sensory  ganglia  is  probably  no  less 
true  of  the  higher  centres  of  intelligence.  There  is 
reason  to  assume  differences,  not  merely  between  gan- 
glionic  centres  in  one  lobe  of  the  brain  and  in  another, 
but  also  between  centres  in  the  same  lobe  and  even  in 
the  same  convolution.  The  law  of  progress  from  the 
general  to  the  special  in  organic  development  does  not, 
it  may  be  presumed,  stay  its  action  suddenly  at  the  cere- 
bral hemispheres.  The  philosopher  is  not,  it  is  true,  in 

*  Suppose  that  men  and  all  animals  that  have  similar  organs  of 
sight  were  swept  off  from  the  face  of  the  earth  :  there  would  be  no 
light,  for  light  is  something  relative  to  the  eye ;  without  which  it  could 
have  no  existence  as  such.  And  if  the  earth  were  inhabited  by  beings 
so  differently  constituted  as  to  have  entirely  different  kinds  of  senses 
from  what  we  have,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  what  the  world 
would  be  to  them.  We  find  ourselves  in  a,  position  in  which  we  are 
acted  upon  and  react,  and,  being  conscious  of  this  action  and  re- 
action, we  get  the  notions  of  object  and  subject ;  we  are  constrained 
to  believe  in  an  external  something,  not  ourselves,  which  is  beneath 
the  phenomena  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  which  includes  us  in 
its  operations,  and  we  may  represent  it  as  we  will  as  nature,  or  a 
universally  immanent  spirit,  or  as  personal  God,  or  personal  devil. 
But  we  never  can  know  more  of  this  external  something  which  is  not 
ourselves  than  in  its  relation  to  ourselves — can  never  by  any  possi- 
bility know  what  it  is  in  itself.  Men  should  amuse  themselves  by 
trying  to  develop  a  new  sense  in  some  individual  or  in  his  progeny 
by  selective  breeding,  as  the  bees,  having  lost  their  queen,  take  in 
hand  a  common  young  one,  ard  feed  and  foster  it  into  a  queen  bee. 
lie  might  amply  repay  their  pains  by  teaching  them  how  little  they 
really  knew  of  the  external  something  which  is  not  themselves. 


124  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

possession  of  more  senses  than  the  savage ;  but  he  un- 
questionably has  more  numerous  and  complex  convolu- 
tions, and,  therefore,  many  more  differentiated  centres  in 
the  primary  centres  of  intelligence.  The  differences  be- 
tween persons  notably  become  greater  as  civilization  in- 
creases; and  outer  differences  assuredly  mean  differences 
in  the  innermost.  It  is  a  common  remark  that  all  savages 
are  much  alike,  and  it  is  certain  that  uneducated  labourers 
are  more  like  one  another  than  educated  persons  are. 
By  intending  his  mind  to  the  realities  of  external  nature 
the  scientific  inquirer  acquires  information  through  the 
senses,  but  his  intelligence  reacts  advantageously  upon 
the  senses  ;  he  constructs  instruments  which  extend  their 
power  of  observation, — thus  acquires,  as  it  were,  new 
artificial  senses;  so  that  hitherto  obscure  relations  of 
external  nature  are  disclosed  to  him,  and  he  attains  to 
more  special  and  complex  relations  therewith.  If  in  the 
nervous  centres  cortical  cells  of  a  higher  quality  and  of 
more  complicated  connections  than  the  savage  has,  do 
not  answer  to  this  increased  speciality  and  complexity  of 
external  relations,  it  is  contrary  to  all  the  analogy  of 
organic  development. 

(d)  Pathological  Evidence. — This  will  be  brought  for- 
ward in  detail  at  a  later  period.  Let  it  suffice  here  to 
say,  that  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk  could  venture  to  assert 
that  he  never  failed  to  discover  morbid  changes  of  struc- 
ture in  insanity,  and  that,  when  intellectual  disorder  espe- 
cially had  existed,  he  had  found  the  cortical  layers  under 
the  frontal  bones  to  be  darker  coloured,  more  firmly  con- 
nected with  the  pia  mater,  or  softened ;  in  melancholia, 
on  the  other  hand,  where  the  feelings  mainly  were  excited 
or  depressed,  the  pathological  changes  were  found  prin- 
cipally in  the  convolutions  of  the  upper  and  hind  lobes. 
In  old  age  when  the  memory  fails,  he  found  the  cells  of 
the  cortical  layers  visibly  atrophied.  The  very  many  and 
various  disorders  to  which  the  memory  is  liable,  failures 


ii. J.     THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      135 

of  such  variety,  degree  and  character  as  can  only  be 
described  by  being  given  in  detail,  surely  indicate  in  no 
uncertain  way  the  different  functions  of  different  centres 
in  the  cortical  layers  of  the  hemispheres. 

Thus  much,  then,  by  way  of  setting  forth  facts  which 
will  not  easily  be  discredited.  What  is  the  unavoidable 
conclusion  ?  That  no  true  scientific  result  can  possibly 
proceed  from  a  vague  and  general  descriptive  employment, 
without  further  discrimination,  of  mental  action  to  embrace 
phenomena  of  such  manifestly  different  nature.  If  the 
psychologists  had  duly  minded  the  old  but  wholesome 
maxim,  that  whosoever  distinguishes  well  teaches  well, 
they  might  have  found  in  the  revelations  of  self-con- 
sciousness, when  interpreted  without  bias,  those  dis- 
tinctions which  an  investigation  of  the  physiology  of  the 
nervous  system  in  man  and  animals  establishes  beyond 
question.  But  the  metaphysical  conception  of  mind,  the 
abstraction  made  into  an  entity,  has  overridden  all  dis- 
cerning observation,  and,  confounding  well-marked  dif- 
ferences in  a  vague  obscurity,  has  constructed  a  loose 
system  of  undefined  words  in  place  of  an  exact  and  posi- 
tive science  of  facts.  Instead  of  mind  being,  as  assumed, 
a  wondrous  spiritual  entity,  the  independent  source  of 
power  and  self-sufficient  cause  of  causes,  an  honest  obser- 
vation proves  incontestably  that  it  is  the  most  depend- 
ent of  all  the  natural  forces.  It  is  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  force,  and  to  its  existence  all  the  lower  natural 
forces  are  indispensably  prerequisite. 

It  is  most  needful,  if  we  would  avoid  confusion  and 
error,  once  for  all  to  form  a  just  and  definite  conception 
of  what  we  intend  to  mean  by  mental  force,  and  of  its 
position  in  nature.  The  various  definitions  of  mind 
which  philosophers  have  tendered  do  not  help  us  far  on 
our  way.  It  is  the  substantia  cogi'tans,  says  Descartes; 
"  that  which  thinks,  reasons,  wills,"  says  Reid ;  "  the 

subject  of  the  various  internal  phenomena  of  which  we 
7 


126  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

are  conscious,  or  the  subject  of  which  consciousness  is 
the  general  phenomenon — that  which  perceives,  thinks, 
feels,  wills,  desires,"  says  Sir  W.  Hamilton  ;  "  the  sum 
total  of  subject  experiences,  that  which  has  not  extension," 
according  to  Mr.  Bain.  But  what  is  the  thinking  substance : 
that  which  thinks,  reasons,  wills ;  that  of  which  conscious- 
ness is  the  phenomenon ;  that  which  is  the  subject  of  ex- 
periences ;  when  we  resolutely  pierce  the  vague  abstrac- 
tion and  get  as  near  as  we  can  to  the  concrete  fact  ?  The 
physiologist  answers  that  it  is  the  brain,  not  any  supposi- 
titious metaphysical  entity  of  the  existence  of  which  he 
has  no  evidence  whatever,  and  of  the  need  of  which  as  a 
hypothesis  he  is  not  conscious.  To  him  the  hypothesis 
is  as  superfluous  in  thought  as  it  is  unfounded  in  obser- 
vation. By  observation  of  mental  phenomena  wherever 
displayed  and  of  whatever  sort,  by  experiment,  by  rea- 
soning— by  all  the  means  of  knowing  which  serve  him 
in  other  scientific  inquiries,  he  has  come  to  the  assured 
conviction  that  mind  does  not  exist  in  nature  apart  from 
brain  :  all  his  experience  of  it  is  in  connection  with  brain 
just  as  all  his  experience  of  gravitation  is  in  connection 
with  matter :  he  has  never  met  with  gravitation  without 
a  heavy  body,  chemical  force  without  chemical  sub- 
stances, life  without  organic  matter,  thought  without 
nervous  tissue.  Mind  he  holds  to  be  nothing  more  than 
a  general  term  denoting  the  sense  of  those  functions  of 
brain  which  are  accompanied  by  consciousness,  and  which 
are  commonly  described  as  thought,  feeling,  and  will  (3) 
To  deal  with  mind  as  a  force  in  nature  apart  from  the 
consideration  of  the  matter  through  the  changes  of  which 
it  is  manifested,  is  truly  no  less  vain  and  absurd  than  it 
would  confessedly  be  to  attempt  to  handle  electricity  and 
gravitation  as  forces  apart  from  the  changes  in  matter  by 
which  alone  we  know  them.  No  man  in  his  senses 
would  attempt  to  develop  a  child's  mind  without  paying 
any  regard  to  its  bodily  nutrition.  Many  persons,  however, 


n.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      127 

seem  to  labour  under  the  impression  that  they  have  the 
right  to  demand  from  the  physiologist  who  deals  with 
mental  functions  that  he  shall  tell  them  more  about  the 
real  nature  of  mind  than  they  know  of  the  real  nature 
of  any  other  natural  force,  and  to  exult  over  him  when 
he  fails  to  do  so.  Not  content  with  his  efforts  to  trace 
uniformities  of  sequence,  they  insist  that  he  shall  explain 
how  or  why  a  certain  mental  sequence  is  the  result  of 
certain  antecedent  cerebral  states.  Were  they  to  con- 
sider fairly  how  much  they  know  and  do  not  know 
concerning  other  natural  forces,  they  would  perceive 
that  it  is  a  preposterous  demand  to  make  in  respect 
of  mind. 

I  know  not  why  they  should  suppose  it  impossible 
that  a  Creator  whom  they  believe  to  be  omnipotent  can 
have  endowed  matter  in  its  most  complex  development 
with  feeling  and  thought,  nor  why  they  should  be  hor- 
rified at  the  suggestion  that  he  has  done  so.  They 
strangely  overlook  the  fact  that  the  brain  is  not  a  dead 
instrument,  but  a  living  organ,  with  functions  of  a  higher 
kind  than  those  of  any  other  bodily  organ,  insomuch  as 
its  structure  far  surpasses  in  organic  dignity  that  of  any 
other  organ.  What,  then,  are  these  functions  if  they  are 
not  mental  ?  It  were  wise  to  ponder  well  the  remark- 
able operations  of  which  matter  is  capable,  and  to 
reflect  upon  the  wonderful  works  which  it  is  continually 
doing  before  our  eyes.  Consider  the  seed  dropped  into 
the  ground :  in  due  season  it  springs  up  as  a  tender 
shoot,  which  grows  into  a  plant  that  puts  forth  first  its 
leaves  and  then  its  blossoms,  making  use  in  the  process 
of  a  more  subtile  chemistry  than  man  can  yet  compre- 
hend or  attain  unto,  until  finally  it  is  clothed  in  such  a 
floral  beauty  that  "Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not 
arrayed  like  one  of  these."  It  is  not  a  spiritual  plant 
which  does  these  things  through  the  agency  of  matter ; 
they  are  operations  of  matter,  and  wonderful  enough, 


128  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

rightly  considered,  to  satisfy  any  one  of  the  properties 
that  are  inherent  in  it.  We  cannot  choose  but  believe 
that  the  highest  and  most  complex  development  of 
organic  structure  is  capable  of  even  more  remarkable 
operations.  In  truth,  when  we  trace  the  development 
of  the  nervous  system  step  by  step  through  the  animal 
series,  from  its  first  germ  to  its  most  complex  evolu- 
tion, we  shall  find  it  a  hard  matter  to  declare  at  what 
point  it  suddenly  loses  all  its  inherent  properties  as 
living  structure,  and  becomes  the  passive  instrument  of 
an  immaterial  entity.  Those  who  repudiate  such  mate- 
rialism may  comfort  themselves  by  conceiving  a  fine 
matter  of  extreme  subtility  and  tenuity,  a  sort  of  im- 
material matter :  whether  they  spiritualise  matter  in  this 
way,  or  materialise  mind,  is  a  question  of  words,  not  of 
facts. 

The  truth  is  that  it  has  been  the  custom  to  dispute 
violently  and  vaguely  about  matter  and  motion,  and 
about  the  impossibility  of  matter  affecting  an  immaterial 
mind,  without  being  at  the  pains  to  reflect  carefully  upon 
the  different  kinds  of  matter  and  the  corresponding 
differences  of  kind  in  its  motions.  All  sorts  of  matter, 
diverse  as  they  are,  were  vaguely  matter — no  discrimina- 
tion was  made  ;  and  all  the  manifold  and  special  proper- 
ties of  matter  were  comprised  under  the  general  term 
motion.  This  was  not,  nor  could  it  lead  to,  good.  As 
there  are  different  kinds  of  matter,  so  there  are  dif- 
ferent modes  of  force,  in  the  universe ;  and  as  we 
rise  from  physical  matter  in  which  physical  properties 
exist  and  laws  hold  sway  up  to  chemical  matter  and 
chemical  forces,  and  from  chemical  matter  again  up  to 
living  matter  and  its  modes  of  force,  so  do  we  rise  in  the 
scale  of  life  from  the  lowest  kind  of  living  matter,  with  its 
corresponding  force  or  energy,  through  different  kinds  of 
organic  elements,  with  their  corresponding  energies  or 
properties,  up  to  the  highest  kind  of  living  matter  and 


II.]       THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      129 

corresponding  mode  of  force  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted, viz.  nerve  element  and  nerve  force.  But,  when 
we  have  arrived  at  nerve  element  and  nerve  force,  it 
behoves  us  not  to  rest  content  with  the  general  idea,  but 
to  bestow  pains  on  the  patient  and  careful  discrimination 
of  the  different  kinds  of  nerve-centres  in  the  nervous 
system,  and  to  study  their  different  manifestations  of 
energy.  So  shall  we  ascend  to  the  most  exalted  agents 
of  mental  function,  and  so  only  shall  we  obtain  the 
ground-work  of  a  true  conception  of  the  relations  of 
mind  and  the  nervous  system. 

In  like  manner  as  men  have  disputed  vaguely  con- 
cerning matter,  without  reaching  an  adequate  conception 
of  that  most  complex  combination  of  elements  and  ener- 
gies, physical  and  chemical,  in  a  small  space,  which  exists 
in  the  smallest  atom  of  nerve  element,  so  has  much  barren 
discussion  been  owing  to  the  undiscriminating  inclusion 
of  all  kinds  of  mental  manifestations  under  the  vague  and 
general  term  mind.  These  are  important  differences  in 
the  nature  and  dignity  of  so-called  mental  phenomena, 
when  they  are  carefully  observed  and  analyzed.  By 
rightly  submitting  the  understanding  to  facts,  it  is  made 
evident  that,  on  die  one  hand,  matter  rises  in  dignity  and 
function  until  its  acknowledged  energies  merge  insensibly 
into  functions  which  are  assumed  to  be  purely  mental, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  are  gradations  of  the 
so  called  purely  mental  functions,  the  lowest  of  which 
confessedly  do  not  transcend  the  functions  of  matter. 
The  burden  of  proving  that  the  Deus  ex  machina  of  an 
immaterial  agent  intervenes  somewhere,  and  where  it 
intervenes,  lies  therefore  upon  those  who  make  the  asser- 
tion or  need  the  hypothesis.  They  are  not  justified  in 
arbitrarily  fabricating  an  hypothesis  entirely  inconsistent 
with  what  we  know  of  the  orderly  development  of  nature, 
and  which  postulates  a  domain  of  nature  that  human 
sense  cannot  take  cognizance  of,  and  in  then  calling 


130  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

upon  those  who  reject  their  assumption  to  disprove  it. 
These  have  done  enough  when  they  have  shown  that 
there  are  no  grounds  for  nor  need  of  the  hypothesis. 

The  chief  feature  to  be  noted  in  this  upward  trans- 
formation of  matter  and  correlative  metamorphosis  of 
force  is,  that  the  exaltation  or  transpeciation  on  each 
occasion  represents  an  increased  speciality  of  elements, 
and  a  greater  complexity  of  combinations,  in  a  smaller 
space  :  all  exaltation  of  matter  and  force  is,  as  it  were, 
a  concentration  thereof.  As  one  equivalent  of  chemical 
force  corresponds  to  several  equivalents  of  inferior  force, 
and  one  equivalent  of  vital  force  to  several  equivalents  of 
chemical  force  ;  so  in  the  scale  of  tissues  the  higher  kind 
represents  a  more  complex  elementary  constitution,  and 
a  greater  number  of  simultaneously  acting  forces,  than 
the  kind  of  tissue  below  it  in  dignity.  If  we  suppose  a 
higher  tissue  to  undergo  decomposition,  or  retrograde 
metamorphosis  of  its  matter,  with  which  must  necessarily 
coincide  a  resolution  of  its  energy  into  lower  modes,  then 
we  might  say  that  a  single  monad  of  the  higher  tissue,  or 
one  equivalent  of  its  force,  would  equal  in  value  several 
monads  of  the  lower  kind  of  tissue,  or  several  equivalents 
of  its  force.  The  characteristic  of  living  matter  is  the 
complexity  of  combinations  and  the  variety  of  elements 
in  so  small  a  compass  that  we  cannot  yet  trace  them ; 
and  in  nerve  structure  this  complication  and  concentra- 
tion is  carried  to  its  highest  pitch.  We  may  suspect, 
but  we  cannot  conceive,  the  complexity  of  systems  and  of 
motions  of  molecules  which  exist  in  the  smallest  atom  of 
nerve  element.  Nervous  tissue  with  its  energy  is,  there- 
fore, dependent  for  its  existence  on  all  the  lower  kinds  of 
tissue  that  have  preceded  it  in  the  order  of  development : 
all  the  force  of  nature  could  not  develop  a  nerve-cell 
directly  out  of  inorganic  matter.  The  highest  energy  in 
nature  is  really  the  most  dependent ;  in  the  fact  that  it  is 
so  dependent,  that  it  implicitly  contains  the  essence  or 


M.J      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      131 

abstraction  of  all  the  lower  kinds  of  energy,  lies  the 
reason  of  the  powerful  influence  which  it  is  able  to  ex- 
ercise over  all  the  lower  forces  that  are  subservient  to 
its  evolution.  As  the  man  of  genius  implicitly  contains 
humanity,  so  nerve  element  implicitly  contains  nature.* 

What  is  the  progress  or  nisus  that  is  manifest  on  sur- 
veying nature  as  a  whole  ?  Is  it  not  the  struggle  to  arrive 
at  consciousness,  to  attain  to  self  communion  ?  In  the 
series  of  her  manifold  productions  man  was,  so  to  speak, 
says  Goethe,  the  first  dialogue  that  Nature  held  with 
God.  Every  poet,  then,  who  is  sensitive  to  a  hitherto 
unrevealed  subtlety  of  human  feeling,  every  philosopher 
who  apprehends  and  reveals  a  hitherto  unobserved  rela- 
tion in  nature,  opens  the  door  to  new  discoveries,  and 
is,  each  in  his  place,  aiding  the  onward  progress  ;  in  his 
art  nature  is  undergoing  evolution ;  in  him  the  world  is 
more  or  less  regenerate, 

"  To  whom  the  winged  Merarch  replied  : — 
O  Adam,  one  Almighty  is,  from  whom 
All  things  proceed,  and  up  to  Him  return, 
If  not  depraved  from  good,  created  all 
Such  to  perfection,  one  first  matter  all, 
Indued  with  various  forms,  various  degrees 
Of  substance,  and  in  things  that  live,  of  life  ; 
But  more  refined,  more  spirituous,  and  pure, 
As  nearer  to  Him  placed,  or  nearer  tending, 
Each  in  their  several  active  spheres  assigned, 
Till  body  up  to  spirit  work,  in  bounds 
Proportioned  to  each  kind.     So  from  the  root 
Springs  lighter  the  green  stalk,  from  thence  the  leaves 
More  aery,  last  the  bright  consummate  flower 
Spirits  odorous  breathes  ;  flowers  and  their  fruit, 
Man's  nourishment,  by  gradual  scale  sublimed, 
To  vital  spirits  aspire,  to  animal, 

*  For  the  further  development  of  this  view  of  life,  I  may  refer  to 
»n  article  on  the  "Theory  of  Vitality,"  in  the  British  and  Foreign 
A/a/.-Cfiir.  Review,  October  1863,  which  is  rcpublished  in  the  second 
edition  of  Body  and  Mind,  1873. 


132  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [cHAr. 

To  intellectual ;  give  both  life  and  sense, 
Fancy  and  understanding  ;  whence  the  soul 
Reason  receives,  and  reason  is  her  being, 
Discursive,  or  intuitive  ;  discourse 
Is  oftest  yours,  the  latter  most  is  ours, 
Differing  but  in  degree,  of  kind  the  same."  (*) 

Paradise  Z^sf,  B.  V. 

NOTES. 

1  (p.  88).  In  the  first  chapter  I  attributed  to  Von  Baer  the  formu- 
larization  of  the  law  of  progress  from  the  general  to  the  special  in-or- 
ganic evolution  ;  and  it  is  true  that  he  traced  it  admirably  through 
the  differentiations  of  the  fundamental  tissues  of  the  embryo.  But  it 
would  appear  that  Von  Baer  never  claimed  the  law  as  his  discovery, 
for  he  says  of  it — "  This  law  of  development  has  indeed  never  been 
overlooked."  Mr.  Lewes  (Life  and  Works  of  Goethe,  1 8$5)  claims 
it  for  Goethe.  "The  law,"  he  says,  "announced  by  Goethe,  and  I 
believe  distinct1  y  announced  by  him  for  the  first  time,  is  now  to  be 
met  with  in  every  philosophic  work  on  zoology.  One  form  of  it  is 
known  in  England  as  Von  Baer's  law  ;  viz.,  That  development  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Like  to  the  Unlike,  from  the  General  to  the  Particular, 
from  the  Homogeneous  to  the  Heterogeneous."  However,  Wolff, 
in  his  Theoria  Gcncralionis,  anticipated  Goethe. 

a  (p.  91).  The  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the  organism  to  its  en- 
vironment, so  far  as  it  belongs  to  anyone  in  particular,  ought  perhaps 
to  be  credited  to  Comte,  who,  at  any  rate,  recognised  its  important 
bearing  and  laid  very  great  stress  upon  it  when  treating  of  Biology. 
Lamarck  had  not,  however,  failed  to  perceive  and  appreciate  the 
powerful  action  of  external  circumstances  upon  the  organism,  while 
Blainville,  in  his  'Court  de  Physiohgie  gtnfrale  et  comfaree,  clearly 
points  out  the  modifying  effects  which  are  thus  produced.  .The  fol- 
lowing extracts  will  suffice  to  exhibit  Comte's  conception  of  the 
doctrine  : — "  All  biological  conceptions  must  of  necessity  depend 
upon  two  kinds  of  adjustment  ;  that  of  the  Organism  to  its  Environ- 
ment, and  that  of  Organs  to  Functions,  or  rather  of  Agents  to  Acts. 
.  .  .  No  conception  in  systematic  biology  can  be  considered  as 
thoroughly  complete  until  it  exhibits  these  two  elementary  relations 
:oherently  combined."  (Positive  Polity,  vol.  i.  p.  517,  Eng.  Trans.) 
..."  Their  study  "  (that  of  the  special  relations  of  functions  to 
organs)  "  will  be  begun  and  carried  on  with  a  distinctly  systematic 
purpose  ;  that  of  forming  a  clearer  conception  of  the  general  rela- 
tion between  the  Organism  and  its  Environment ;  for  this,  and  thii 


II.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      133 

only,  is  the  ultimate  goal  at  which  the  science  of  Life  aims  "  (p.  519). 
.  .  .  "In  this  more  systematic  conception  of  Biology,  Function  will 
be  regarded  as  the  special  result  of  a  determinate  relation  between 
Knvh umiu'iit  and  Organism  "  (p.  520).  He  speaks  of  the  general 
theory  of  organic  environments  as  "an  entirely  new  branch  of 
biology,  of  which  Lamarck  must  be  considered  as  the  true  founder, 
although  with  him  it  was  too  much  mixed  up  with  unfounded  hypo- 
theses as  to  the  indefinite  variability  of  species"  (p.  537).  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  has  given  the  most  complete  and  elaborate  de- 
velopment to  the  doctrine  in  his  Principles  of  Biology  ;  but  as  Mr. 
Spencer  does  not  on  any  occasion  give  references  to  or  make  quota- 
tions from  authors  who  have  preceded  him,  but  works  up  their  re- 
sults systematically  into  his  lucid  exposition,  those  who  gain  all  their 
knowledge  of  philosophy  from  the  most  recent  and  popular  exposi- 
tions of  it,  and  ascribe  to  their  authors  all  they  find  there,  are  prone 
to  think  original  that  which  is  often  a  legacy  from  the  past.  This 
practice  of  ignoring  authorities,  though  it  no  doubt  has  its  conveni- 
ences, bears  hardly  and  disagreeably  sometimes  on  those  who  may 
have  occasion  to  write  upon  the  same  subjects,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  liable  to  be  charged  by  ignorant  persons  with  borrowing  from  an 
eminent  contemporary  what  the  contemporary  has  really  derived 
from  the  same  well-known  source,  and  would  not  claim  as  his  own. 
This  is  trying :  the  most  serenely  pankleptic  appropriator  of  the 
fruits  of  past  thought  will  become  recalcitrant  when  he  is  charged 
with  specific  appropriation  of  material,  not  from  the  real  proprietor 
of  the  property,  who  may  perhaps  not  be  known  by  name,  but  from 
one  who,  indebted  for  it  to  the  same  sources  in  the  stores  of  the 
past  as  himself,  does  not  make  specific  acknowledgments. 

3  (p.  126).  The  definition  of  Descartes  makes  the  function  the  sub- 
stance. Instead  of  mind  being  the  thinking  substance,  the  substantia 
cogitans,  it  is  the  thinking  which  is  mind — the  function  of  the  sub- 
stance ;  the  substance  being  the  brain.  Hamilton's  definition  is  de- 
fective on  its  own  ground.  By  defining  mind  to  be  the  subject  of  the 
various  internal  phenomena  of  which  we  are  conscious,  he  leaves  all  the 
mental  phenomena  of  which  we  are  not  conscious,  and  the  existence 
of  which  he  admitted,  without  any  subject ;  he  does  not  deal  with 
that  substratum  of  mentality  which  is  beneath  mentation  or  con- 
scious mental  function,  and  which  is  in  the  cerebral  organization. 
Cerebral  mental  function  may  be  conscious  or  unconscious,  active, 
subactive,  or  in  abeyance  ;  and  it  is  only  when  the  intimate  organs 
of  thoughts,  desires,  &c.,  reach  a  certain  height  of  energy  that  their 
functions  become  conscious — that  they,  in  fact,  function  as  con- 
sciousness. Mr.  Bain's  definition  seems  still  more  open  to  animad- 


134  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

version,  as  will  appear  if  we  alter  the  wording  of  it,  when  it  will 
run  thus — mind  is  the  sum  total  of  the  experiences  of  that  which 
has  not  extension,  that  which  has  not  extension  being  a  subject! 
What,  we  may  ask,  is  this  subject  which  has  not  extension  ?  Surely 
it  stands  in  need  of  some  definition.  Psychologically  speaking, 
moreover,  we  cannot  properly  say  that  a  sensation  has  or  lias  not 
extension  ;  consciousness  does  not  tell  us  ;  the  word  extension  has 
no  meaning  when  applied  to  its  revelations  ;  the  meaning  of  the 
word  is  entirely  objective.  And  if  we  come  to  objective  experience, 
we  cannot  conceive  something  which  has  not  extension  ;  it  is  a  con- 
tradiction, not  something  but  nothing.  We  never  meet  with  mind 
except  in  connection  with  matter  — with  a  subject  that  has  extension, 
and  cannot,  it  seems  to  me,  think  of  it  otherwise.  By  a  process  of 
abstraction,  it  is  true,  we  may  separate  mind  from  matter,  as  we 
separate  weight  from  a  heavy  body,  but  it  is  a  mere  abstraction 
which  corresponds  to  nothing  in  nature. 

*  (p.  132).  That  Milton  intended  this  passage  to  be  sound  philo- 
sophy is  shown  by  what  he  says  in  his  Treatise  on  Christian  Doctrine. 
After  declaring  the  inconceivability  of  God  having  created  the  world 
out  of  nothing,  arguing  that  it  was  framed  out  of  pre-existent 
matter,  which  proceeded  from  God,  and  is  incapable  of  annihilation, 
he  goes  on  to  propound  the  doctrine  that  there  is  no  ground 
for  the  supposed  distinction  between  body  and  soul.  Matter 
being  "an  efflux  of  the  Deity"  is  plainly  capable  of  intellectual 
functions.  "  That  man  is  a  living  being,  intrinsically  and  properly 
one  and  individual,  not  compound  or  separable,  not,  according  to 
the  common  opinion,  made  up  and  framed  of  two  distinct  and 
different  natures,  as  of  soul  and  body,  but  the  whole  man  is  soul, 
and  the  soul,  man  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  body  or  substance,  individual, 
animated,  sensitive,  and  rational  .  .  .  Hence  the  word  used  in 
Genesis  to  signify  soul  is  interpreted  by  the  apostle,  I  Cor.  xv.  45, 
'  animal.'  Again,  all  the  attributes  of  the  body  are  assigned  in 
common  to  the  soul ;  the  touch,  Lev.  v.  2 — '  if  a  soul  touch  any 
unclean  thing*  ;  the  act  of  eating,  vii.  8 — 'the  soul  that  eatelh  of 
it  shall  bear  its  iniquity,'  and  in  other  places  ;  hunger — Prov.  xiiL 
25,  xxvii.  7  ;  thirst,  xxv.  25,  '  as  cold  waters  to  a  thirsty  soul,' 
Isaiah  xxix.  S;  capture — I  Sam.  xxiv.  II,  'thou  huntest  my  soul 
to  take  it.'  .  .  .  .  But  that  the  spirit  of  man  should  be  separate 
from  the  body,  so  as  to  have  a  perfect  and  intelligent  existence  inde- 
pendently of  it,  is  nowhere  said  in  Scripture,  and  the  doctrine  is 
evidently  at  variance  both  with  nature  and  reason,  as  will  be  shown 
more  fully  hereafter.  For  the  word  soul  is  also  applied  to  every  kind 
of  living  being ;  Gen.  L  30,  '  to  every  beast  of  the  earth,  &c., 


n.]      THE  MIND  AND  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.      135 

wherein  there  is  life  ' ;  vii.  22,  '  all  in  whose  nostrils  was  the  breath 
of  life,  of  all  that  was  in  the  land,  died' ;  yet  it  is  never  inferred  from 
these  expressions  that  the  soul  exists  separate  from  the  body  in  any 
of  the  brute  creation.  ....  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the 
human  soul  is  not  created  daily  by  the  immediate  act  of  God,  but 
propagated  from  father  to  son  in  a  natural  order.  ....  There 
seems,  therefore,  no  reason  why  the  soul  of  man  should  be  made  an  ex- 
ception to  the  general  law  of  creation.  For,  as  has  been  shown  before, 
God  breathed  the  breath  of  life  into  other  living  beings,  and  blended 
it  so  intimately  with  matter,  that  the  propagation  and  production  of 
the  human  fonn  were  analogous  to  those  of  other  forms,  and  were  the 
proper  effect  of  that  power  which  had  been  communicated  to  matter 

by  the  Deity For  the  original  matter  of  which  we  speak  is 

not  to  be  looked  on  as  an  evil  or  a  trivial  thing,  but  as  intrinsically 
good,  and  the  chief  productive  stock  of  every  subsequent  good." 
Vol.  i.  p.  1 88. 

Robert  Hall,  the  great  Baptist  preacher,  at  one  peiiod  of  his  life, 
held  a  similar  opinion.     "I  am,"  he  says,  "and  have  been  for  a 

long  time,  a  materialist My  opinion  upon  this  head  is  that 

the  nature  of  man  is  simple  and  uniform  ;  that  the  thinking  powers 
and  faculties  are  the  result  of  a  certain  organization  of  matter ;  and 
that  after  death  he  ceases  to  be  conscious  until  the  resurrection." 
However,  "attentive  to  the  voice  of  heavenly  admonition,"  his 
biographer  tells  us,  he  afterwards  abandoned  these  dangerous  specula- 
tions, and  "buried  materialism  in  his  father's  grave," — Memoir  of 
Robert  Uall,  p.  32. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SPINAL  CORD,  OR  TERTIARY  NERVOUS 
CENTRES;  OR  NERVOUS  CENTRES  OF  REFLEX 
ACTION. 

OMITTING  for  the  present  any  mention  of  the  lowest 
nervous  centres  of  the  body — first,  because  they  minister 
chiefly  to  the  organic  life,  and  little  is  definitely  known 
about  them ;  and  secondly,  because  something  will  be 
said  of  them  incidentally  when  treating  of  the  Passions 
— I  go  on  to  show  forth  the  functions  of  the  spinal  cord. 
It  is  not  a  conducting  organ  between  the  outer  world  and 
the  brain  only,  but  contains  many  independent  nerve 
centres.  A  large  part  of  human  activity  notably  takes 
place  without  any  voluntary  control,  or  even  without  any 
consciousness,  on  the  part  of  the  individual ;  and  of 
these  unconscious  or  involuntary  actions  a  great  part  is 
as  plainly  due  to  the  independent  power  of  reaction 
which  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  spinal  cord  have.  If  it 
be  cut  across  at  a  spot  below  where  the  respiratory 
nerves  are  given  off,  all  sensation  and  voluntary  motor 
power  are  lost  in  the  parts  of  the  body  below  the  section ; 
but  if  the  sole  of  the  foot  be  then  tickled  with  a  feather, 
the  leg  is  drawn  up,  though  the  man  is  unaware  of  it 
unless  he  sees  or  is  told  by  others  what  happens.  John 
Hunter  mentions  the  case  of  a  patient  suffering  from 
paraplegia,  that  is,  paralysis  of  the  lower  half  of  the 
body,  in  whose  legs  violent  movements  which  he  did  not 


CHAP,  in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  137 

feel  were  produced  when  the  soles  of  the  feet  were  irri- 
tated. When  asked  whether  he  felt  the  irritation  which 
excited  the  movements,  he  replied,  "  No,  sir ;  but  you 
see  my  legs  do."  Such  automatic  action  of  the  spinal 
cord,  manifest  enough  in  the  actions  of  man,  but  still 
more  so  in  those  of  the  lower  animals,  may  be  illustrated 
both  from  the  animal  kingdom  and  from  the  phenomena 
of  human  life. 

When  the  earliest  actions  of  the  new-born  infant  are 
observed,  it  is  plain  that,  like  the  movements  of  the 
foetus  within  the  mother's  womb,  or  the  movements  of 
many  of  the  lower  animals,  they  are  simply  reflex  to  im- 
pressions, and  take  place  without  will,  or  even  without 
consciousness.  The  anencephalic  infant,  in  which  ab- 
sence of  brain  involves  an  absence  of  consciousness,  not 
only  exhibits  movements  of  its  limbs,  but  is  capable  also 
of  the  associated  reflex  acts  of  sucking  and  crying.  An 
infant  does  not  require  to  be  taught  to  cough ;  it  can 
expel  irritating  matter  from  the  bronchial  tubes  by  simple 
reflex  action ;  but  it  cannot  spit  until  it  has  learnt  the  art. 
Hence,  when  it  coughs  up  a  quantity  of  mucus  it  is  al- 
most choked  by  it,  or,  another  reflex  act  coming  into  play, 
swallows  it.  The  same  thing  happens  in  the  apoplectic  and 
the  dying  person  when  the  original  reflex  functions  sur- 
vive the  decay  of  the  acquired  automatic  functions. 
But  it  is  from  experiments  on  animals  that  we  have 
gained  our  clearest  ideas  of  reflex  action.  When  the 
head  of  a  male  frog  which  is  clinging  to  the  female  at 
the  season  of  sexual  congress  is  cut  off,  the  body  main- 
tains its  hold,  and  even  when  a  foot  is  cut  off,  clings  to  her 
with  the  stump  ;  if  the  posterior  half  of  the  body  be  cut 
away,  the  anterior  half  still  holds  on  ;  but  if  that  part  of 
the  cord  from  which  the  nerves  to  the  anterior  limbs  go  is 
destroyed,  the  hold  is  loosened  at  once,  just  as  the  grasp 
of  a  vice  is  loosened  when  a  backward  turn  is  given  to  the 
tightening  screw.  A  similar  relaxation  is  produced  in 


138  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

higher  animals  by  discharge  of  the  energy  of  the  nerve- 
centres  concerned :  compare  the  spasmodic  grasp  of  eager 
love  with  the  relaxed  hold  of  sated  lust  A  decapi- 
tated frog  will  draw  up  its  leg  with  mechanical  regularity 
whenever  its  foot  is  pinched  or  acetic  acid  is  applied  to  it, 
the  time  which  elapses  between  the  application  of  the  irri- 
tant and  the  withdrawal  of  the  foot  varying  according  to 
the  strength  of  the  irritant,  and  hardly  varying  more  than 
a  second  at  each  application  if  the  strength  of  the  irritant 
is  the  same. 

But  there  is  a  well-known  experiment  which  yields 
even  more  striking  results.  Pfliiger  touched  with  acetic 
acid  the  thigh  of  a  decapitated  frog  over  its  internal 
condyle ;  it  wiped  it  off  with  the  dorsal  surface  of  the 
foot  of  the  same  side :  he  thereupon  cut  off  the  foot, 
and  applied  the  acid  to  the  same  spot ;  the  animal 
attempted  to  wipe  it  off  again  with  the  foot  of  that  side, 
but,  having  lost  its  foot,  of  course  could  not.  After  some 
fruitless  efforts,  therefore,  it  ceased  to  try  in  that  way, 
seemed  unquiet,  "  as  though  it  were  searching  for  some 
new  means,"  and  at  last  it  made  use  of  the  foot  of  the 
other  leg,  and  succeeded  in  wiping  off  the  acid.  When 
it  has  done  that,  the  animal  will  remain  at  rest  for  hours, 
until  some  new  stimulus  is  applied ;  it  makes  no  spon- 
taneous movements.  Notably  we  have  in  this  striking 
experiment  not  merely  contractions  of  muscles,  but  com- 
bined movements  in  due  sequence  for  a  special  purpose ; 
we  have  actions  that  have  all  the  appearance  of  being 
instigated  by  will  and  guided  by  intelligence  in  an  animal 
the  recognized  organ  of  whose  intelligence  and  will  has 
been  removed.  So  much,  was  Pfliiger  impressed  by  this 
wonderful  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end  in  a  headless 
animal,  that  he  actually  inferred  that  the  spinal  cord,  like 
the  brain,  was  possessed  of  sensorial  functions.  We  have 
clearly,  however,  no  knowledge  that  the  frog  feels  the 
irritation ;  all  we  know  certainly  is  that  this  has  induced 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  139 

certain  definite  movements.  Others,  who  would  scarce 
admit  Pfliiger's  supposition  to  be  true  of  man,  have 
thought  that  it  might  be  so  of  some  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals. Instead  of  grounding  their  judgment  of  the  com- 
plex phenomena  in  man  on  their  experience  of  the 
simpler  instances  exhibited  by  the  lower  animals,  they 
have  applied  to  the  lower  animals  what  I  believe  to  be 
their  subjective  misinterpretation  of  the  complex  pheno- 
mena in  man.C) 

It  is  obviously  quite  possible  to  draw  another  inference 
from  Pfliiger's  experiment :  that  the  so-called  design  of 
an  act  does  not  necessarily  witness  to  the  co-existence  of 
will,  forethought,  or  consciousness  ;  that  actions  "  having 
the  semblance  of  pre-designing  consciousness "  may, 
nevertheless,  be  unattended  with  consciousness.*  No 
doubt  there  is  a  definite  purpose  in  the  movements  which 
the  maimed  frog  makes,  as  there  is  definite  purpose  in 
the  movements  of  the  anencephalic  infant's  lips,  in  the 
respiratory  movements  of  man  or  animal,  or  in  such 
movements  as  are  necessary  for  coughing,  sneezing,  and 
swallowing ;  but  in  all  these  instances  the  co-ordinate 
activity  is  the  result  of  an  innate  nervous  constitution, 
an  original  endowment  of  the  nervous  centres.  In  the* 

*  Very  interesting,  in  relation  to  this  matter,  are  Prochaska's  ob- 
servations, published  in  1784  : — "  Cum  itaque  precipua  functiosen- 
sorii  communis  consistat  in  reflexione  impressionum  sensoriarum  in 
motorias,  notandum  est  quod  ista  reflexio  vel  animd  inscid  vcl  vera 
animd  conscid  fiat"  He  gives  numerous  examples,  often  given  since 
by  other  authors,  and  adds  : — "  Omnes  istae  actiones  ex  organismo  et 
physicis  legibus  sensorio  communi  propriis  fluunt,  suntque  propterea 
spontaneae  et  automatic*." — Commentatio  de  Functionibiis  Systematic 
Nervosi,  p.  88.  1784.  It  must  be  rememSered  that  Prochaska  in- 
cluded the  spinal  cord  under  the  semorium  commune.  To  the  same 
effect  are  Unzer's  remarks  : — "  What  in  them  appears  to  be  voli- 
tional, only  appears  so,  because  we  draw  conclusions  as  to  other 
animals  from  the  nature  and  working  of  our  own  minds.  What  ap- 
pears to  be  designed  arises  from  the  preordination  of  nature."  Unser 
and  rrochaska  on  the  Nervous  System.  Syd.  Soc.  TransL,  p.  323. 


140  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  AlIND.  [CIJAP. 

physiological  mechanism  of  the  frog's  spinal  cord  are  the 
faculties  of  the  movements  which  it  makes  for  self-pre- 
servation ;  it  has  inherited  them  as  a  part  of  its  nature, 
and  without  them  could  hardly  live  a  day.  Accordingly 
we  see  that  the  frog  acts  necessarily  and  blindly ;  though 
it  has  lost  its  foot,  acts  as  if  the  foot  were  still  there, 
which,  were  there  intelligent  consciousness,  it  plainly 
should  not;  and  only  employs  other  means  when  the 
irritating  action  of  the  stimulus  continues  unaffected  by 
its  fruitless  movements.  As  the  movement  which  takes 
place  in  a  sensitive  plant — the  Mimosa  pudica  for  in- 
stance— when  it  is  irritated,  is  not  limited  to  the  spot 
where  the  irritation  acts,  but  extends,  if  this  be  sufficiently 
intense,  to  the  whole  plant ;  or  as  when  an  insect  settles 
on  a  leaf  of  the  Dioncea  muscipula,  it  is  held  first  by  the 
bending  round  of  the  hairs,  and  afterwards  the  whole 
leaf  gradually  rolls  itself  round  it ;  or  as  in  certain  mor- 
bid states  of  the  human  organism  the  continuance  of  an 
irritation,  which  at  first  only  causes  slight  reflex  action, 
may  produce  a  more  general  involuntary  reaction,  or 
convulsions;  so  in  the  frog,  the  enduring  stimulus,  which 
has  not  been  affected  by  the  customary  reflex  movement, 
now  gives  rise  to  those  further  reflex  movements  which 
are  the  physiological  sequences  of  the  former,  and  would 
have  been  made  use  of  had  the  creature  still  possessed 
its  brain.  In  the  constitution  of  the  spinal  cord  are 
implanted  the  capabilities  of  such  co-ordinate  energies  ; 
and  the  continuance  of  the  irritation  determines  the  ex- 
tension of  the  activity.  There  takes  place  an  irradiation 
of  the  stimulus.  But  this  happens  unquestionably  with- 
out the  frog's  consciousness,  whether  or  not  it  happens 
without  a  consciousness  on  the  part  of  its  spinal 
cord;  all  the  design  which  there  is  in  the  movement 
is  of  the  same  kind  as  the  design  which  there  is  in 
the  formation  of  a  crystal,  or  in  the  plan  of  growth 
of  a  tree.  A  crystal  cannot  overstep  the  laws  of  its 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  141 

form,  nor  can  a  tree  grow  up  into  heaven  ;  the  particles 
of  the  crystal  aggregate  after  a  certain  definite  plan,  and 
thus  strictly  manifest  design.  Are  we  then  to  assume 
that,  because  of  the  design,  there  is  consciousness  in 
the  forming  crystal  or  the  growing  tree  ?  Assuredly  not ; 
and  yet  it  is  to  such  extreme  conclusion  that  the  argu- 
ments of  those  who  look  upon  the  so-called  design  of  an 
act  as  testifying  to  consciousness  logically  lead.  The 
design  of  an  act  is  nothing  else  but  the  correlate  in  the 
mind  of  the  observer  of  the  law  of  the  matter  in  nature ; 
and  each  observer  will  see  in  any  event  exactly  that 
amount  of  design  which  he  brings  with  him  the  faculty  of 
seeing. 

Although  we  have  good  grounds  for  affirming  that  the 
movements  of  the  frog  which  has  been  deprived  of  its 
hemispheres  may  be  explained  satisfactorily  without  the 
assumption  that  its  spinal  cord  possesses  feeling  and  will, 
there  are  persons  of  eminence  who  hold  positively  that 
the  experiments  prove  the  diffusion  of  these  functions 
through  the  nerve-centres  of  the  lower  animals.  In  sup- 
port of  this  opinion,  they  instance  further  the  fact  that 
when  an  insect  is  cut  in  two  the  forepart  of  the  body 
may  continue  to  eat,  while  the  hind  part  continues  the 
act  of  sexual  congress,  as  proof  that  the  will  to  eat  and 
the  feeling  of  appetite  lie  in  the  former,  the  will  to  sexual 
congress  and  the  feeling  thereof  in  the  latter.  It  some- 
times happens,  again,  when  an  earwig  is  cut  in  two,  that 
the  divided  parts  of  the  body  turn  on  each  other,  and 
fight  with  fury  and  passion  until  death  or  exhaustion  ends 
the  fray ;  an  event  which  could  not  be,  they  say,  unless 
there  were  consciousness  and  will  in  each  part.  They 
believe,  therefore,  that  consciousness  and  will  may  undergo 
as  many  divisions  as  there  are  separate  nerve-centres  in 
the  body.  Some  go  yet  farther,  and  refuse  to  limit  will  to 
the  nervous  system,  holding  that  they  observe  clear  evi- 
dence of  its  action  where  there  is  no  trace  of  either 


142  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

muscular  or  nervous  fibres.  If  a  polype  be  placed  in  a 
glass  of  water,  and  if  a  living  infusory  animalcule  be  put 
in  the  water,  and  brought  near  to  the  polype,  the  latter 
perceives  it  somehow,  and  thereupon  raises  a  whirlpool 
with  its  tentacles  in  order  to  bring  it  within  their  grasp 
and  drag  it  into  its  stomach :  an  instance,  it  is  said,  of 
feeling  and  will  in  a  creature  which  has  neither  muscle 
nor  nerve.  Assuredly  they  are  logical  in  this  extension 
of  their  theory ;  but  when  they  have  endowed  the  polype 
with  these  conscious  functions,  they  will  do  well  to  take 
heed  that  they  are  not  suffering  themselves  to  be  beguiled 
by  words,  and  to  reflect  whether  there  lurks  not  some 
obscurity  and  confusion  in  the  use  which  they  make 
of  the  words  consciousness  and  will ;  whether,  in  fact, 
they  mean  anything  like  the  same  things  when  they 
speak  of  the  consciousness  and  the  will  of  a  polype, 
and  when  they  speak  of  human  consciousness  and 
will.  The  dispute  with  their  opponents  must  be  vague 
and  endless  unless  they  agree  upon  some  more  precise 
definition  of  terms  in  accordance  with  the  undoubted 
diversities  of  the  facts.  It  will  not  advance  knowledge 
to  identify  phenomena  of  a  different  kind  by  giving  them 
the  same  name ;  on  the  contrary,  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge lies  in  following  the  specializations  of  develop- 
ment, and  in  defining  differences  by  a  precise  use  of 
terms.  The  matter  may  be  put  briefly  thus  :  does  feel- 
ing imply  that  which  a  person  means  when  he  says — / 
feel,  /  am  conscious  ?  If  it  does,  one  cannot  believe 
that  the  polype  or  the  spinal  cord  has  feeling ;  if  it  does 
not,  then  some  other  term  than  feeling  should  be  used 
to  denote  organic  susceptibilities,  or  that  so-called  feel- 
ing which  the  individual  has  not  as  an  ego,  but  which  the 
least  particle  of  his  living  protoplasm  is  assumed  to 
have. 

In  trying  to   determine  whether  the  spinal  cord   is 
endowed  with  feeling  and  will,  we  shall  do  well  to  con- 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  143 

sider  how  very  small  a  part  of  a  conscious  and  voluntary 
movement  we  are  really  conscious  of.  We  know  the  end 
or  aim  of  the  movement,  and  we  know  that  we  give  the 
order  to  accomplish  it ;  but  the  actual  execution  of  it  is 
left  to  the  organized  mechanism,  innate  or  acquired,  of 
the  motor  centres  and  their  connections.  The  main  part 
of  a  voluntary  act  is  truly  the  automatic  action  of  the 
spinal  cord ;  and  the  will  is  absolutely  dependent  upon 
the  automatic  mechanism  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
acts,  while  this  may  operate  by  itself  independently  of  the 
will.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  conscious  has  essential 
need  of  the  automatic,  while  the  latter  has  no  need  of  it. 
Consciousness  is  a  superfluity  so  far  as  the  execution  of 
the  act  is  concerned,  being,  when  it  occurs,  merely  a  co- 
effect  Instead  of  attributing  consciousness  to  the  func- 
tion of  the  spinal  cord,  the  lesson  of  nature  teaches  us 
rather  to  proceed  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  to  take 
out  of  a  voluntary  act  the  large  part  which  is  strictly  auto- 
matic, and  which,  the  impulse  once  given,  would  be  done 
as  well  without  as  with  consciousness.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  impulse  to  an  act  which  was  first  voluntary  may, 
after  the  act  has  become  habitual,  be  a  stimulus  from  with- 
out; for  movements  that  were  at  first  executed  consciously 
oftentimes  become  unconscious,  and  are  done  in  answer  to 
external  stimuli.  We  remove  an  irritation  which  is  acting 
upon  some  part  of  the  body,  as  for  instance  a  fly  on  the 
forehead,  without  being  conscious  of  what  we  have  done, 
unless  we  reflect  afterwards.  We  have  certainly  no  clear 
conception  of  the  place  of  the  irritation,  or  of  the 
character  and  measure  of  the  muscular  exertion  which  we 
make,  and  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  a  dim  conscious- 
ness or  obscure  conception  would  suffice  to  make  so 
nice  and  exact  an  adaptation  as  takes  place  :  a  suppo- 
sition which  would  nevertheless  have  to  be  made  if  the 
adaptation  were  dependent  on  consciousness.  Are  we  then 
to  entertairi  seriously  the  more  improbable  assumption 


144  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

that  the  spinal  cord  has  such  an  exact  consciousness  ? 
And  yet  this  is  an  assumption  which  those  must  make 
who  believe  that  the  spinal  cord  feels  impressions  and 
responds  to  its  feelings  by  exact  purposive  movements. 
The  organized  mechanism  is  the  real  automatic  agency, 
and  we  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  exact  faculty  of  ac- 
complishing the  act  has  been  organized  in  it,  built  into  its 
nature,  so  to  speak,  by  previous  training  and  experience. 

What  we  have  to  realize  is  that  the  afferent  nerve 
is  adapted  to  receive  a  certain  impression  and  to 
convey  it  to  the  nervous  centre,  and  that,  the  impression 
made,  it  does  so  receive  and  convey  it  whether  we  are 
conscious  of  it  or  not ;  that  when  the  impression  reaches 
the  centre,  it  stimulates  the  energy  which  is  latent  in  it, 
whether  we  are  conscious  of  it  or  not;  and  that  this 
energy  then  acts  upon  the  Afferent  or  motor  nerve,  and 
accomplishes  the  movement  through  the  agency  of  the 
proper  muscles,  which  we  could  not  even  select  con- 
sciously if  we  would.  It  is  entirely  a  physical  pro- 
cess, which  is  nowise  prevented  from  taking  place 
because  it  is  not  accompanied  by  consciousness.  Our 
own  experience,  rightly  interpreted,  is  adverse,  then,  to 
the  opinion  that  the  movements  of  the  decapitated  frog 
evince  that  its  spinal  cord  is  endowed  with  consciousness. 
It  is  hardly  conceivable,  if  it  were  so  endowed,  that  the 
creature  should  never  make  a  single  spontaneous  move- 
ment; that  it  should  remain  perfectly  quiet  until  a 
new  stimulus  is  applied  ;  that  its  activity  should  be  pro- 
portionate to  the  stimulus ;  and  that  it  should  not  profit 
by  its  experience  of  previous  excitations,  notwithstand- 
ing that  it  is  supposed  to  have  so  nice  a  consciousness  of 
the  place  of  the  irritation  and  of  the  exact  movements 
proper  to  relieve  its  sufferings. 

The  way  in  which  such  movements  as  the  mutilated 
frog  makes  may  be  prevented,  furnishes  further  evidence 
of  their  mechanical  nature.  In  the  experiment  in  which 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  145 

its  leg  is  regularly  drawn  up  on  irritating  its  foot,  it  has 
been  found  by  Nothnagel  that  no  effect  is  produced  if 
the  sciatic  nerve  of  the  other  leg  is  irritated  by  a  faradic 
current  This  is  an  instance  of  what  is  called  inhibition : 
some  change  is  produced  in  the  motor  centres  of  the 
cord,  which  operates  to  inhibit  or  prevent  the  movement. 
Does  not  this  experiment  strengthen  our  conception  of 
the  entirely  physical  nature  of  the  movements  ?  Take 
another  example  of  reflex  action  similarly  prevented. 
After  division  of  the  spinal  cord  in  dogs,  Goltz  discovered 
that  by  touching  the  anus  with  a  wet  sponge,  or  tickling 
it,  and  by  touching  or  pressing  the  foreskin,  the  sphincter 
of  the  bladder  was  relaxed,  and  a  stream  of  urine  ex- 
pelled, at  first  in  a  steady  stream,  and  afterwards  in  jets, 
from  the  action  of  the  bulbo-cavernous  muscles.  The  con- 
traction of  these  muscles  was  at  once  arrested  by  press- 
ing on  the  foot  of  the  animal.  It  may,  of  course,  be 
said  that  these  facts  really  furnish  evidence  that  the 
spinal  cord  feels,  and  that  the  proper  interpretation  of 
them  is  in  this  wise  :  feeling  the  stimulus  to  the  foreskin 
it  responds  by  relaxation  of  the  sphincter  and  contraction 
of  the  bulbo-cavernous  muscles,  but  when  a  new  impres- 
sion from  the  foot  reaches  it,  its  attention  is  distracted 
thereby,  and  it  no  longer  feels  the  first  impression.  Let 
who  will  choose  this  conception  :  to  me  it  appears  to  be 
the  imagination  of  the  phenomena  of  an  unconscious 
consciousness,  and  an  unwarranted  application  of  ideas 
derived  from  experience  of  the  highest  nerve-centres  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  phenomena  of  much  lower 
centres.  It  is  because  of  the  adaptation  to  a  purpose 
which  these  movements  effected  by  the  spinal  cord  show, 
because  of  the  design  manifest  in  them,  that  so  many 
people  find  it  hard  to  believe  them  to  be  purely  reflex 
and  unconscious ;  they  seem  to  have  an  insuperable 
difficulty  in  realising  that  adaptive  reaction  is  a  radical 
property  of  living  organic  matter,  and  that  conscious 


146  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

design  is  itself  but  a  manifestation  of  this  property  in  the 
highest  nerve-centres. 

Much  fruitless  theory  would  have  been  avoided  if  the 
real  nature  of  design  had  been  kept  distinctly  in  mind. 
The  notion  that  the  soul  works  unconsciously  in  the  build- 
ing up  of  the  organism,  which  has  at  different  times  been 
so  much  in  vogue,  rests  entirely  upon  the  assumption 
that  an  intelligent  principle  or  agent  must  be  immanent 
in  organic  matter  which  is  going  through  certain  definite 
changes.  But  if  in  the  development  of  an  animal,  why  not 
in  the  growth  of  a  tree,  which  fulfils  an  equally  definite 
plan,  adapting  itself  wisely  to  its  surroundings  ?  If  in  the 
formation  of  an  organ,  why  not  also  in  the  formation  of 
a  chemical  compound  with  its  characteristic  properties  ? 
The  function  is  the  necessary  result  of  a  certain  definite 
organic  structure  under  certain  conditions,  and  in  that 
sense  must  needs  minister  to  the  furtherance  of  its  well- 
being.*  But  an  organic  action,  with  never  so  beautifully 
manifest  a  design,  may,  under  changed  conditions,  be- 
come as  disastrous  as  it  is  usually  beneficial ;  the  peri- 
staltic movements  of  the  intestines,  which  serve  so 
essential  a  purpose  in  the  economy,  may,  and  actually  do, 
in  the  case  of  some  obstruction,  become  the  cause  of 
intolerable  suffering  and  a  painful  death.  Where,  then, 

*  The  proper  course  would  be  to  reverse  the  method  of  our  in- 
quiries and  conclusions,  and,  instead  of  discovering  the  operations  of 
soul  in  the  processes  of  organic  growth  and  development,  to  discover 
the  properties  of  matter  that  are  evinced  by  organic  growth  and  de- 
velopment to  operate  in  the  construction  of  soul — to  place  our  feet 
firmly  upo.i  the  lower  steps  before  we  attempt  to  go  up  higher.  That 
appropriation  of  matter  of  force  and  concentration  thereof  in  its  sub- 
stance which  organic  element  accomplished  when  it  was  first  formed 
out  of  inorganic  matter,  and  accomplishes  constantly  now  when  it  in- 
creases and  multiplies  in  plants  and  animals  at  the  cost  of  inorganic 
matter,  is  what  a  higher  tissue,  like  nervous  tissue,  does,  with  increas- 
ing complexity,  when  it  is  developed  out  of  a  lower  tissue,  and  what 
is  displayed,  in  a  still  higher  degree  of  complexity,  in  the  development 
of  the  mental  structure  and  functions  of  the  supreme  cerebral  centres. 


Hi.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  147 

is  the  design  of  their  disastrous  continuance  ?  The  pro- 
cess of  repair  in  a  ruptured  urethra  will,  instead  of 
restoring  the  integrity  of  the  canal  and  then  coming 
to  a  stop,  go  on,  with  a  final  purpose  singularly  and 
obstinately  mischievous,  to  produce  an  obliteration  of 
the  canal,  unless  human  art  come  to  the  rescue.  M. 
Bert  has  made  many  extremely  interesting  experiments 
on  grafting  parts  cut  from  the  body  of  one  animal  on  to 
that  of  another.  For  example,  he  cut  off  the  paw  of  a 
young  rat,  and  grafted  it  in  the  flunk  of  another  rat ;  it 
took  root  there,  and  went  through  its  normal  growth,  be- 
ginning to  dwindle  after  a  time.  Where  was  the  design 
of  its  going  through  its  regular  development  there  ?  Or 
what,  in  the  temporary  adoption  and  nutrition  of  this 
useless  member,  was  the  final  purpose  of  the  so-called 
intelligent  vital  principle  of  the  rat  on  which  the  graft 
was  made  ? 

The  idea  of  design  is  really  a  conception  which  we 
form  from  repeated  experiences  of  the  law  of  the  matter 
— a  law  fulfilling  itself  in  the  effect  necessarily,  fatally, 
blindly — and  to  which  we  transfer  our  experience  of  an 
event  or  end  willed  by  us,  and  accomplished,  not 
directly,  but  indirectly  through  intermediate  steps  or 
means.  We  are  not  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  an  im- 
mediate effect  as  the  aim  or  design  of  the  cause — of  the 
evolution  of  heat,  for  example,  as  the  design  of  combus- 
tion, or  of  the  properties  of  a  chemical  compound  as  the 
design  of  its  combining  elements ;  but  when  a  cause 
works  effects,  which  in  turn  become  causes  of  further 
effects  and  so  accomplish  finally  a  certain  definite  result, 
or  when  a  concurrence  of  circumstances  has  led  to  an 
event,  we  recognize  in  the  series  of  operations  or  the  con- 
on  rence  of  conditions  a  suitability  or  so-called  adaptation 
of  causes  and  conditions  to  the  final  effect;  thereupon  we 
pronounce  this  to  be  the  aim  or  design  of  them,  because 
if  we  consciously  willed  the  effect,  and  brought  it  about 


148  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

through  such  a  chain  of  means,  we  should  say  rightly  that 
we  had  designed  it  The  more  complex  the  process,  so 
long  as  we  perceive  that  it  works  out  a  definite  result,  the 
more  we  are  struck  with  admiration  of  the  design.  Hence 
it  is  that  organic  nature  is  the  fruitful  field  of  final  causes. 
But  it  is  certain  that  when  men  have  thus  transferred  to 
nature  the  experience  of  their  imperfect  working  through 
means  to  an  end,  and  have  concluded  the  existence  in  it 
of  a  mind  like  their  own,  they  have  made  a  conception  of 
God  after  their  own  image,  which,  as  Spinoza  remarked, 
divests  him  of  his  perfection.  "  For  if  God  acts  for  an 
"  end  or  purpose,  he  necessarily  desires  something  which 
"he  is  without."* 

It  will  not  be  amiss  to  take  note  here  of  the  very 
different  way  in  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  regarding 
dead  matter  and  living  matter.  In  dead  matter  the 
form  is  looked  upon  as  the  attribute  of  the  matter; 
whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  in  living  bodies  the  matter  is 
treated  as  the  attribute  of  the  form  :  in  inorganic  nature 
the  matter  is  the  essential  thing,  in  organic  nature  the 
form  is  all  in  all.  We  cannot  get  rid  of  the  notion  of 
some  mysterious  potency  in  organic  form  which  controls 
the  action  and  determines  the  disposition  of  matter,  be- 
cause we  cannot  get  rid  of  the  notion  of  matter  as  inert 
or  dead.  But  matter  is  not  inert ;  not  the  smallest  par- 
ticle of  it  which  is  not  a  complex  system  of  atoms  in  most 
active  and  complicated  movements  ;  and  to  neglect  the 
exact  consideration  of  the  conditions  and  combinations  of 
matter,  as  determining  organic  form,  is  not  less  mis- 
chievous than  it  is  to  concentrate  all  attention  upon 
matter  in  inorganic  nature.  What  are  inseparably  joined 
together  in  nature  let  us  not  vainly  attempt  to  put  asun- 
der. Mindful  of  this  maxim  we  shall  not  be  so  much 
tempted  to  fall  back  upon  that  vague  and  shifting 

*  Spinoza.  Ethics:  Parti.,  Appendix.  Translated  by  R.  Willis, 
M.D.  p.  448. 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  149 

doctrine  of  final  causes  which  has  done  so  great  harm 
in  science,  or,  as  Bacon  has  it,  has  strangely  defiled  philo- 
sophy, and  which,  though  often  rejected  absolutely,  and 
now  banished  from  the  more  advanced  sciences,  still  works 
injuriously  in  biology,  where  so  much  is  yet  recondite 
and  obscure. (')  The  human  understanding  can  indeed 
best  impose  its  own  rules  on  nature  in  that  province 
where  the  truth  is  most  inaccessible  and  least  known. 
Not  only  does  it  in  biology  look  for  a  final  cause  answer- 
ing to  its  own  measure,  but,  having  found  this,  or  created 
it,  proceeds  straightway  to  superadd  its  own  attribute  of 
consciousness,  so  that  wherever  evidence  of  design  is 
met  with,  be  it  only  in  the  function  of  the  spinal  cord  of 
a  decapitated  frog,  there  consciousness  is  assumed.  Is  it 
not  a  marvel  that  no  teleologist  has  yet  been  found  to 
maintain  that  the  final  cause  of  the  moon  is  to  act  as  a 
"  tug"  to  the  vessels  on  our  tidal  rivers;  or  that  the  final 
cause  of  the  redness  of  human  blood  is  to  facilitate  the 
detection  of  the  murderers  who  shed  blood  ? 

There  can  be  no  difficulty  in  admitting  that  the  spinal 
cord  is  an  independent  centre  of  so  called  aim-working 
acts  that  are  not  attended  with  consciousness.  It  is  the 
centre,  however,  not  only  of  co-ordinate  action  the  capa- 
bility of  which  has  been  implanted  in  its  original  consti- 
tution, but  also  of  co-ordinate  action  the  power  of  which 
has  been  gradually  acquired  and  matured  through  indi- 
vidual experience.  Like  the  brain,  the  spinal-cord  has,  so 
to  speak,  its  memory,  and  must  be  educated  ;  the  reaction 
which  it  displays,  in  consequence  of  a  particular  impression 
conveyed  to  it  from  without,  does  not  vanish  issueless, 
leaving  the  track  unmodified  after  the  function  has  been 
discharged.  With  the  display  of  energy  there  is  a  coin- 
cident change  or  waste  of  nerve  element ;  and,  although 
a  subsequent  regeneration  or  restoration  of  the  statical 
equilibrium  takes  place  by  the  quiet  process  of  nutrition, 
yet  the  nutritive  repair,  following  the  track  of  the  energy 


ISO  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

and  coincident  material  change,  registers  the  experience. 
It  is  not  an  integration  only  which  is  accomplished,  but  a 
redintegration ;  the  substance  is  made  whole  after  a  par- 
ticular exercise  of  function — after  in  pattern  as  well  as 
time.  Thereby  the  definite  activity  is  to  some  extent  real- 
ized or  embodied  in  the  structure  of  the  spinal  cord,  exist- 
ing there  for  the  future  as  a  motor  residuum,  or  as,  so  to 
speak,  a  potential  or  abstract  movement ;  accordingly 
there  is  thenceforth  a  tendency  to  the  recurrence  of  the 
particular  activity — a  tendency  which  becomes  stronger 
with  each  repetition  of  it  Every  impression  which  is 
made  leaves  behind  it,  therefore,  its  trace  or  residuum, 
which  is  again  quickened  into  activity  on  the  occasion  of 
an  appropriate  stimulus ;  the  faculties  of  the  spinal  cord 
are  thus  gradually  formed  and  matured.  We  may  easily 
note  in  the  acquirement  of  a  complex  purposive  movement 
the  difficulty  which  there  is  at  first  in  defining  the  path  of 
the  stimulus  and  directing  it  exactly  to  the  proper  muscles 
— in  limiting  the  excitation ;  and  we  shall  not  fail  to  note 
hereafter  that  this  is  done,  not  by  willing  to  put  these 
muscles  in  action,  but  by  clumsily  imitating  the  move- 
ment until  we  attain  to  an  exact  imitation,  or  by  making 
many  trials  of  movements  until  we  find  out  the  most 
suitable  one,  and  so  get  an  unconscious  mastery  of  the 
proper  muscles.  The  path  must  be  made,  and  the  more 
often  it  is  trodden  the  more  distinct  will  it  be :  awk- 
wardly through  trials  and  blunders  we  fall  into  the 
adjustment  which  we  aftenvards  perfect  by  experience. 

When  a  series  or  group  of  movements  is,  after  many 
voluntary  efforts,  associated,  they  notably  become  more 
and  more  easy,  and  less  and  less  separable,  with  every 
repetition,  until  at  last  they  are  firmly  fixed  in  the  consti- 
tution of  the  cord,  become  a  part  of  the  faculty  of  it,  and 
may  be  accomplished  without  effort  or  even  without  con- 
sciousness :  they  are  the  secondary  or  acquired  automatic 
acts,  as  described  by  Hartley.  (3)  Once  the  track  has 


Hi.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  151 

been  laid  down  it  is  easier  for  the  stimulus  to  follow  it 
than  to  leave  it,  just  as  it  is  easier  for  a  train  to  run  on 
the  rails  than  to  run  off  them,  or  for  water  to  run  in 
its  channel  than  to  run  out  of  it  In  this  way  walk- 
ing becomes  so  far  a  reflex  or  automatic  act  that  a 
man  in  a  profound  abstraction  may  continue  to  walk 
without  being  conscious  where  he  is  going,  and  find 
himself,  when  he  is  aroused  from  his  reverie,  in  a 
different  place  from  that  which  he  intended  to  visit. 
In  that  form  of  epilepsy  known  as  the  petit  mat  an 
individual  sometimes  continues  automatically,  whilst 
consciousness  is  in  abeyance,  the  act  which  he  was 
engaged  in  when  the  attack  seized  him :  a  shoemaker 
used  frequently  to  wound  his  fingers  with  the  awl  as  he 
went  on  with  his  work,  and  on  one  occasion  walked  into  a 
pond  of  water  during  the  suspension  of  consciousness  ; 
and  a  woman  whom  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk  knew  used 
to  continue  eating  or  drinking,  or  the  occupation  she 
was  about,  being  quite  unconscious  on  recovery  of  what 
had  happened.  Trousseau  mentions  a  young  amateur 
musician  subject  to  epileptic  vertigo,  who  sometimes  had 
a  fit  lasting  for  ten  or  fifteen  seconds  whilst  playing  the 
violin.  Though  he  was  perfectly  unconscious  of  every- 
thing around  him,  and  neither  heard  nor  saw  those  whom 
he  was  accompanying,  he  still  went  on  playing  in  time 
during  the  attack.  The  same  author  also  mentions  an 
architect  who  had  long  been  subject  to  epilepsy,  and 
did  not  fear  to  go  up  the  highest  scaffoldings,  though 
perfectly  aware  that  he  had  often  had  fits  while  walking 
across  narrow  planks  at  a  considerable  height  He  had 
never  met  with  an  accident,  although,  when  in  a  fit,  he 
ran  rapidly  over  scaffoldings,  shrieking  out  his  own  name 
in  a  loud  and  abrupt  voice.  A  quarter  of  a  minute 
afterwards  he  resumed  his  occupation  and  gave  his 
orders  to  the  workmen ;  but  unless  he  was  told  of  it 
afterwards,  he  had  no  idea  of  his  strange  behaviour 


152  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

during  the  fit.*  In  fact,  if  any  one  attends  to  his  ordi- 
nary actions  during  the  day,  it  will  be  surprising  how 
small  a  proportion  of  them  are  consciously  willed,  how 
large  a  proportion  of  them  are  the  results  of  the  acquired 
automatic  action  of  the  organism.  It  is  sufficiently  evi- 
dent that  the  faculties  of  the  spinal  cord  are,  for  the 
most  part,  not  inborn  in  man,  but  gradually  built  up  by 
virtue  of  experience  and  education ;  in  their  formation 
they  illustrate  the  progress  of  human  adaptation  to  ex- 
ternal nature. 

Certainly  the  capability  of  associated  voluntary  move- 
ments, or  the  germ  of  such  capability,  does  appear  to 
exist  as  an  innate  endowment  of  the  spinal  cord  even  in 
man ;  ready  to  come  into  action  at  the  proper  epoch  of 
that  development  which  goes  on  in  him  after  birth,  under 
the  influence  of  suitable  external  conditions,  until  he 
reaches  maturity.  As  the  young  animal,  directly  it  is 
born,  can  sometimes  use  its  limbs  with  complete  effect, 
or  as  the  infant,  previous  to  any  experience,  is  capable  of 
that  association  or  catenation  of  movements  necessary  to 
crying,  breathing,  or  coughing,  so  soon  as  it  meets  with 
suitable  external  conditions ;  so  likewise  does  there 
appear  to  be,  as  Mr.  Bain  argues,  t  the  germ  of  a  loco- 

*  "  Their  condition  may  be  compared  to  somnambulism,  or  better 
still  to  what  happens  in  the  case  of  certain  individuals  who  answer 
questions  during  sleep,  but  do  not  recollect  anything  when  they  wake 
up." — TROUSSEAU,  Clinical  Lectures,  vol.  L,  p.  60. 

t  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  2nd  ed.  It  has  long  been  dis- 
tinctly recognized  as  a  general  law  that  when  a  moderate  stimulus 
excites  several  motor  nerves,  these  are  physiologically  connected  : 
first,  inasmuch  as  all  the  fibres  going  to  a  particular  muscle  are 
simultaneously  excited,  so  that  partial  movement  of  the  muscle  does 
not  take  place  ;  secondly,  as  the  regular  reflex  activity  implicates 
such  muscles  as  are  functionally  co-ordinated,  the  associated  action 
of  which  produces  certain  physiological  effects — e.g.,  coughing, 
sneezing,  swallowing.  In  the  electric  fish,  the  malapterus,  the  nerve 
going  to  the  electric  apparatus  is  at  first  a  single  fibre  which  divides 
and  subdivides  in  its  couise,  until  it  furnishes  as  many  branches  as 


ill.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  153 

motive  harmony  in  the  original  conformation  of  the 
nervous  centres  of  man  which  develops  rapidly  at  the 
proper  epoch.  Not  only  does  the  analogy  of  the  lower 
animals  favour  the  belief  in  the  original  existence  of  such 
an  associating  link,  but  the  tendency  to  an  alternate 
action  of  the  lower  limbs,  and  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
body,  observably  precedes  any  acquisition  of  experience. 
Before  a  child  can  walk  it  will  make  alternate  move- 
ments of  its  legs  when  it  is  held  with  its  feet  touching  the 
ground.  There  is,  furthermore,  a  proneness  to  the  in- 
voluntary association  of  the  motions  of  corresponding 
parts  of  the  two  sides  of  the  body ;  and,  as  Miiller  has 
observed,  the  less  perfect  the  action  of  the  nervous 
system  in  man,  or  the  less  developed  volition  is,  the 
more  general  are  the  associate  movements.  It  would  be 
a  fruitless  task,  however,  to  attempt  to  fix  the  value  of 
this  pre-established  arrangement  in  man,  where  it  is 
obviously  at  best  rather  a  potentiality  than  an  actuality  ; 
for  all  practical  purposes,  we  must  view  the  faculties  of 

there  are  electric  plates  ;  so  that  the  creature  cannot  isolate  a  part  of 
the  apparatus,  but  must  put  all  the  plates  into  action  together.  As 
Sir  C.  Bell  has  remarked,  "a  child  smiles  before  anything  incon- 
gruous can_enter  the  mind,  before  even  pleasure  can  be  supposed  a 
condition  of  the  mind.  Indeed,  the  smile  on  the  infant's  face  is  first 
perceived  in  sleep."  Its  forefathers  have  smiled,  and  it  is  the  heir  of 
their  acquisitions.  Contortions  of  its  face  from  pain  or  uneasiness 
are  witnessed  long  before  smiles  ( The  Hand ;  its  Mechanism  and 
Vital  Endowments).  The  locomotive  harmony  is  the  result  of  the 
connections  of  certain  cells  and  groups  of  cells  in  the  nerve-centres. 
"  Si  I'homme,  le  lapin,  le  moineau,  le  pigeon,  ne  marchent  pas  des 
leur  naissance,  c'est  uniquement  a  cause  du  developpement  incom- 
plet  des  divers  organes,  et  surtout,  sans  doute,  des  centres  nerveux. 
Si  1'enfant  naissait  en  prcsentant  un  degre  de  developpement  egal  a 
celui  qu'offre  le  cochon  d'Inde,  il  marcherait  desle  premier  jour."— • 
VULPIAN  (op.  cit.),  p.  529.  What  happens  in  the  infant's  nerve- 
centres  when  it  does  learn  to  walk,  we  know  not :  it  may  be  that  an 
actual  growth  of  nerve-cells  and  of  their  connections  takes  place  in 
the  course  of  such  education  ;  or  it  may  be  that  pre-existent  cells  and 
connections  are  gradually  differentiated  in  function. 


154  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

his  spinal  cord  as  acquired  by  education.  The  child 
certainly  has  the  capability  of  learning  to  walk,  but  the 
actual  process  of  learning  involves  the  expenditure  of 
much  time  and  energy,  and  represents  a  progressing 
development  of  the  spinal  cord  :  it  is  the  faculty  thereof 
in  the  making.  Of  course  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
the  spinal  centres  of  themselves  suffice  ordinarily  for  all 
the  complicated  movements  of  walking,  although  they 
may  do  so:  all  that  is  claimed  is,  that  they  are  the 
automatic  centres  of  certain  associate  movements  which 
have  been  acquired,  and  which  constitute  a  large  part  of 
our  daily  action.* 

This  power  of  co-ordinate  action,  which  the  spinal 
centres  acquire  by  assimilation  of  the  influence  of  the 
individual's  surroundings  and  respondent  reaction  thereto, 
is  plainly  a  most  useful,  as  it  is  a  most  necessary,  provi- 
sion of  nature.  For  if  an  act  became  no  easier  after  being 
done  several  times,  if  the  careful  direction  of  conscious- 
ness were  necessary  to  its  accomplishment  on  each  occa- 
sion, it  is  evident  that  the  whole  activity  of  a  lifetime 
might  be  confined  to  one  or  two  deeds — that  no  progress 
could  take  place  in  development.  A  man  might  be  oc- 
cupied all  day  in  dressing  and  undressing  himself;  the 
attitude  of  his  body  would  absorb  all  his  attention  and 
energy ;  the  washing  of  his  hands  or  the  fastening  of  a 

*  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk,  after  saying  that  the  production  of 
harmonized  movement  is  due  to  the  ultimate  connection  of  certain 
groups  of  ganglionic  cells  in  the  spinal  cord,  goes  on  to  say — "It 
has  always  been  incomprehensible  to  me,  how  any  one  could  ever 
have  referred  it  (co-ordination)  to  the  cerebellum.  If  the  cause  of 
the  co-ordination  lay  in  the  cerebellum,  no  harmonixed  reflex  move- 
ments could  take  place  in  a  decapitated  frog." — On  the  Minute 
Structure  of  Spittal  Cord  ami  Medulla  Oblongata,  p.  72.  The  sup- 
position that  the  cerebellum  is  the  sole  centre  of  co-ordination  of 
movements  is  now,  in  fact,  abandoned  as  untenable.  There  never 
was  any  real  scientific  evidence  to  support  it,  while  there  was  positive 
evidence  against  it  (See  Vcrsuch  einer  physiologischen  Pathologie 
4tr  A'erven,  von.  G.  Valentin,  1864,  vol.  ii.,  p.  68.) 


Hi.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  155 

button  would  be  as  difficult  to  him  on  each  occasion  as 
to  the  child  on  its  first  trial ;  and  he  would  furthermore 
be  completely  exhausted  by  his  exertions.  Think  of  the 
pains  necessary  to  teach  a  child  to  stand,  of  the  many 
efforts  which  it  must  make,  and  of  the  ease  with  which  it 
at  last  stands,  unconscious  even  of  an  effort  For  while 
secondary  automatic  acts  are  accomplished  with  com- 
paratively little  weariness — in  this  regard  approaching  the 
organic  movements,  or  the  original  reflex  movements — 
the  conscious  efforts  of  the  will  soon  produce  exhaustion. 
A  spinal  cord  without  that  power  of  retention  which  in 
the  higher  centres  we  call  memory  would  simply  be  an 
idiotic  spinal  cord  incapable  of  culture— a  degenerate 
nervous  centre  in  which  the  organization  of  special 
faculties  could  not  take  place.  It  is  impossible  for  an 
individual  to  realise  how  much  he  owes  to  its  automatic 
agency  until  disease  has  impaired  its  functions  :  and  it  is 
the  lesson  of  a  good  education  so  consciously  to  exercise 
it  in  reference  to  its  surroundings  that  it  shall  act  auto- 
matically, in  accordance  with  the  relations  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  particular  walk  of  life. 

The  phenomena  of  secondary  automatic  action  are 
well  fitted  to  exhibit  the  mode  of  origin  and  the  nature  of 
what  we  call  design.  It  is  here  seen  to  be  an  acquisition 
that  is  gradually  organized  in  respondence  to  particular 
experience  and  education ;  representing  as  it  does,  the 
acquired  nature  of  the  nervous  structure,  its  manifesta- 
tion is  the  simple  result  of  the  constitution  of  the  mate- 
rial substratum,  just  as  the  properties  of  any  chemical 
element  are  the  unavoidable  result  of  its  nature.  To  say 
that  means  are  adapted  to  the  production  of  an  end  in 
the  phenomena  of  life,  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that 
what  we  please  to  call  life  exists ;  for  if  means  or  causes 
were  not  adapted  to  the  end  or  effect,  there  could  plainly 
be  no  end ;  and  if  we  perceive,  or  choose  to  assume,  a 
certain  result  to  be  the  end  of  certain  means,  then  we 


156  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

are  but  saying  that,  according  to  our  experience,  certain 
combinations  of  matter  have  certain  definite  properties. 
The  vulgar  doctrine  of  final  causes  contravenes  nature 
entirely,  assuming  as  effect  that  which  is  truly  cause,  and 
as  cause  that  which  is  truly  effect  In  the  building  up  of 
the  secondary  automatic  faculties  of  the  spinal  centres, 
.ve  are  able  to  trace  through  the  course  of  its  formation 
in  individual  life  that  design  which  we  meet  with  fully 
formed  in  the  innate  faculties  of  so  many  animals ;  but 
which  even  in  that  case  has  been,  as  we  shall  hereafter 
see,  gradually  organized  through  generations.  If  it  be 
said  that  the  gradual  building  up  by  education  of  this 
embodied  design  into  the  constitution  of  the  nervous 
centres  is  itself  evidence  of  design,  then  we  can  only 
answer  that  such  proposition  is  merely  a  statement  in 
other  words  of  the  fact  that  things  are  as  they  are,  and 
add  the  expression  of  a  conviction  that  science  cannot 
enter  into  the  councils  of  creation.  Certainly  nothing  is 
gained  by  taking  refuge  in  that  '  asylum  of  ignorance — the 
Will  of  God.'  The  growth  of  a  cancer  until  it  kills  the 
body,  or  of  a  vice  until  it  ruins  the  mind,  is  neither  more 
nor  less  evidence  of  design.  Should  these  considerations 
not  be  satisfactory  to  the  teleologists,  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  recall  to  them  the  already  quoted  remark  of  Spinoza, 
and  to  congratulate  them  on  their  power  of  diving  into 
"the  mysteries  of  things,  as  if  they  were  God's  spies." 
Were  it  not  well,  however,  that  they  should  condescend 
to  humble  things,  and  unfold  to  us,  for  example,  the  final 
cause  of  the  rudimentary  mammary  gland  and  nipple  in 
the  male  animal  ?  * 

*  A  task  which,  after  all,  is  perhaps  not  inconceivably  difficult 
For  example  :  we  know  that  the  male  integrates  the  qualities  of  its 
male  and  female  ancestors,  having  them  potential  or  actual,  and 
transmits  them  to  its  progeny  :  may  we  not  conceive,  then,  that  the 
rudimentary  gland  in  it  is  a  necessary  condition  of  such  complete 
inheritance  and  transmission,  integrating  the  mammary  characters  ; 
and  that,  if  the  male  were  wiUiout  it,  it  would  be  impossible  for  the 


in.]  THE  SPIXAL  CORD  157 

f 

As  the  faculties  of  the  spinal  cord  are  built  up  by 
organization,  so  must  they  be  kept  up  by  due  nutrition. 
If  not  so  preserved  in  vigour,  if  exhausted  by  excesses  of 
any  kind,  the  ill  effects  are  manifest  in  degenerate  action  ; 
there  is,  so  to  speak,  a  decomposition  of  its  composite 
motor  functions ;  instead  of  definite  co-ordinate  action 
ministering  to  the  well-being  of  the  individual,  irregular 
spasmodic  or  convulsive  movements  ensue,  which,  though 
inevitable  consequences  of  the  degenerate  condition  of 
the  nerve  centres,  serve  no  good  end,  but  have  strangely 
forgotten  their  beneficial  design.*  Sir  James  Paget  has 
made  the  probable  suggestion  that  the  rhythmical  organic 
movements,  such  as  those  of  the  heart,  of  respiration,  of 
the  cilia,  are  due  to  a  rhythmical  nutrition ;  that  is,  "  a 
method  of  nutrition  in  which  the  acting  parts  are,  at 
certain  periods,  raised,  with  time-regulated  progress,  to  a 
state  of  instability  of  composition,  from  which  they  then 
decline,  and  in  their  decline  discharge  nerve-force."  f  It 
may  be  easily  conceived,  therefore,  why  they  are  never 
tired  when  acting  naturally ;  between  each  succeeding  act 
of  function  a  nutritive  repair  takes  place,  and  the  time  of 
each  occurrence  of  the  movement  represents  the  time-rate 

influences  of  its  female  ancestors  to  take  effect  in  the  mammary  de- 
velopment and  function  of  its  female  progeny,  as  we  have  good  reason 
to  believe  they  do  ?  But,  it  may  be  said,  if  this  argument  is  valid, 
it  would  involve  this  necessity  :  that  the  male  shall  have  every  organ 
which  the  female  has,  and  the  female  every  organ  which  the  male 
has.  Well,  so  they  have  ;  or,  at  any  rate,  they  have  organs  that  are 
the  homologues  of  one  another.  At  one  period  of  development  we 
cannot  distinguish  the  male  from  the  female  ;  the  subsequent  differ- 
ences being  produced  by  the  female  stopping  short  on,  and  diverging 
a  little  from,  the  track  of  development  on  which  the  male  goes 
forwards. 

*  They  have,  no  doubt,  their  design  quite  as  much  as  the  healthy 
movements,  in  so  far  as  they  accomplish  what  they  cannot  he'p 
doing,  their  destiny— in  other  words,  fulfil  the  law  which  necessitates 
them. 

t  CroontJH  Lecture  before  the  Royal  Society,  1857. 


158  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CKAP. 

of  nutrition.     When  the  heart  is  made  to  beat  slowly  by 
stimulation  of  the  vagus  nerve  it  will  continue  to  beat  for 
a  long  time,  but  when  its  pulsations  are  quickened  by 
irritation   of  the   sympathetic  nerve,  it   soon   becomes 
exhausted  and  stops,  owing  no  doubt  to  exhaustion  of  its 
motor  centres  in  consequence  of  nutrition  being  unable 
to  keep  pace  with  the  quickened  action.     But  the  spinal 
centres  are  equally  dependent  on  nutrition  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  functions  which  they  discharge  in   the 
animal  life ;  the  structural  or  chemical  change  produced 
by  the  ordinary  activity  of  the  day  must  be  repaired 
during  a  period  of  cessation  of  action.     This  restoration 
we  believe  to  take  place  during  sleep  ;  and  there  is  some 
reason  to  believe  that  the  periodical  action  of  the  spinal 
centres  is,  like  rhythmical  organic  movement,  dependent 
upon,  or  closely  related  to,  the   time-rate  of  nutrition. 
The  unconscious  quiet  manner  in  which  the  automatic 
function  of  the  spinal  centres  is  performed,  though  in  one 
way  or  another  the  work  is  continuous  during  waking, 
might  seem  at  first  sight  to  render  no  cessation  of  action 
necessary ;  but  a  little  reflection  shows  that,  here  as  else- 
where, the  expenditure  of  force  must  be  balanced  by  a 
corresponding  supply ;  there  must  be  alternation  of  acti- 
vity and  repose.     If  no  rest  be  allowed,  the  exhaustion  is 
evinced,  first,  in  an  inability  to  accomplish  successfully  the 
most  delicate  or  complex  associated  movements — in  a 
loss,  that  is,  of  design ;   then  in  trembling  incapacity, 
which,  if  the   degeneration  increases,  may  pass   on  to 
actual  spasmodic   movements  and  finally  to  paralysis. 
Therein  we  have  sure  evidence  that  the  constitution  ot 
the  nerve  element  has  suffered  from  the  drain  of  energy. 
A  reflection  which  occurs,  in  considering  the  nervous 
mechanism  by  which  the  action  and  reaction  between 
the  individual  and  nature  take  place,  is  as  to  the  dispro- 
portionate exhibition  of  force  by  the  organism  to   the 
force  of  the  simple  impression  which  may  happen  to  be 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  159 

made  upon  it.  How,  with  due  regard  to  the  principle  of 
the  conservation  of  force,  do  we  account  for  this  seeming 
generation  of  energy?  In  the  first  place,  the  central 
nerve  cell  is  not  a  simple  impassive  body,  which  merely 
reflects  or  passes  onwards  a  received  current  of  activity, 
without  affecting  it  or  being  affected  by  it :  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  the  complexly  constituted,  supremely  endowed 
centre  in  which  force  is  released  or  evolved  on  the  occa- 
sion of  a  suitable  stimulus ;  and  that  which  is  perceived, 
as  it  were,  in  the  spinal  cord  is  not  the  actual  impression 
made  upon  the  afferent  nerve,  but  it  is  the  effect  pro- 
duced in  the  particular  central  nerve  cell  or  cells.  It 
is  not  hard  to  conceive  how  this  force  or  energy  is 
evolved,  or,  as  it  were,  let  loose  in  the  cell.  By  the  dis- 
turbance of  the  statical  equilibrium  of  an  intensely  vital 
structure ;  by  a  change  of  the  material  into  lower  kinds, 
or  a  degeneration  of  it,  and  a  correlative  resolution  of  its 
force  into  lower  modes  and  larger  volumetrical  display. 
There  is  not  any  actual  generation  of  energy ;  there  is  a 
transformation  of  the  high  quality  of  latent  or  potential 
energy  which  the  nervous  monad  implies  into  actual 
energy  of  a  lower  quality  and  larger  display.  The  little 
change  or  motion  which  the  impression  makes  at  the 
extremity  of  the  afferent  nerve  is  propagated  along  the 
nerve  and  produces  a  much  greater  change  or  motion  in 
the  unstable  nerve  element  of  the  central  cell;  an  ex- 
plosion of  molecular  energy,  so  to  speak,  is  occasioned, 
which  thereupon  is  propagated  in  different  directions  to 
other  cells,  where  it  is  similarly  multiplied ;  the  final  re- 
sult being  the  release  of  sufficient  energy  to  accomplish 
the  act.  If,  as  has  been  calculated,  the  consumption  of 
half  a  pound  of  carbon  would  produce  an  amount  of  heat 
which,  if  expressed  in  its  equivalent  of  mechanical  force, 
would  be  enough  to  raise  a  man  of  average  weight  to  the 
highest  summit  of  the  Himalayas,  it  is  clear  that  the  oxi- 
dation of  the  complex  carbon  compounds  of  the  nerve 


i6o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

element  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  nerve  force  which 
is  liberated  in  its  function.  Consider  what  has  been  pre- 
viously said  as  to  the  nature  of  nerve  element  and  its  posi- 
tion in  the  universe,  it  will  then  be  sufficiently  evident  what 
manner  of  process  it  is  that  takes  place.  Slowly  and,  as 
it  were,  laboriously,  by  a  steady  appropriation  and  ascent 
1  through  many  gradations  of  vitality,  does  organic  element 
..  arrive  at  the  complex  and  supreme  nature  of  nerve 
structure ;  quickly  and  easily  does  nerve  element  give 
back  force  and  matter  to  nature,  in  the  rapid  resolution 
which  the  accomplishment  of  its  function  implies.  (4) 

Thus  much  concerning  the  inherent  force  of  the  spinal 
cord  as  a  nervous  centre.  In  the  second  place,  bear  in 
mind  the  nature  of  its  acquired  faculties,  and  the  great 
expenditure  of  power  made  upon  its  education.  In  the 
registration  of  impressions  made  upon  it,  in  the  assimi- 
lation of  their  residua,  there  is  slowly  embodied  a  quantity 
of  energy  as  an  organic  addition  of  power ;  force  is  being 
stored  up  in  the  gradual  organisation  of  its  faculties. 
The  exhaustion  which  we  feel  from  our  efforts  to  acquire 
any  particular  skill  of  movements,  as  in  learning  to  dance, 
the  labour  given  to  the  frequent  voluntary  repetition  of 
the  stimulus  and  adapted  reaction  thereto,  until  by  prac- 
tice the  definite  relation  has  been  established,  and  the 
desired  skill  acquired ; — these  testify  to  the  expenditure 
of  so  much  force  which  has  been  laid  up  as  potential 
in  the  constitution  of  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  cord, 
rendering  possible  for  the  future  the  easy  performance  of 
a  group  of  associated  movements  in  answer  to  a  moderate 
and,  as  might  often  seem,  disproportionate  stimulus  from 
without  Like  the  brain,  the  spinal  cord  lays  up  good 
store  of  power  in  its  memory.  Man's  life  truly  represents 
a  progressive  development  of  the  nervous  system  ;  none 
the  less  so  because  it  takes  place  out  of  the  womb  instead 
of  in  it  The  regular  transmutation  of  motions  which  are 
at  first  voluntary  into  secondary  automatic  motions,  as 


ill.]  THE  SPINAL  COKD.  161 

Hartley  called  them,  is  due  to  a  gradually  effected 
organisation  in  the  proper  centres ;  and  we  may  rest 
assured  of  this,  that  co-ordinate  activity  always  testifies 
to  stored-up  power,  either  innate  or  acquired.* 

The  way  in  which  an  acquired  faculty  of  the  parent 
animal  is  sometimes  distinctly  transmitted  to  the  progeny 
as  a  heritage,  instinct,  or  innate  endowment,  furnishes 
a  striking  confirmation  of  the  foregoing  observations. 
Power  which  has  been  laboriously  acquired  and  stored 
up  as  statical  in  one  generation,  manifestly  in  such  case 
becomes  the  inborn  faculty  of  the  next ;  and  the  develop- 
ment takes  place  in  accordance  with  that  law  of  increas- 
ing speciality  and  complexity  of  adaptation  to  external 
nature  which  is  traceable  through  the  animal  kingdom ; 
or,  in  other  words,  that  law  of  progress  from  the  general 
to  the  special  in  development  which  the  appearance 
of  nerve  force  amongst  natural  forces  and  the  com- 
plexity of  the  nervous  system  of  man  both  illustrate. 
As  the  vital  force  gathers  up  into  itself  inferior  forces, 
and  might  be  justly  said  to  be  a  development  of 
them,  or  as  in  the  appearance  of  nerve  force  simpler 
and  more  general  forces  are  gathered  up  and  con- 
centrated in  a  more  special  and  complex  mode  of 
energy ;  so,  again,  a  further  specialisation  takes  place 
in  the  development  of  the  nervous  system,  whether 
watched  through  generations  or  through  individual  life. 
Not  by  limiting  our  observation  to  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual, who  is  but  a  link  in  the  chain  of  organic  beings 

*  The  description  of  the  spinal  functions  as  reflex  is  not  entirely 
free  from  objection,  because  the  term  is  apt  to  convey  the  idea  that 
the  centripetal  current  of  the  afferent  nerve  is  simply  reflected  on  to 
the  efferent  nerve  and  becomes  the  centrifugal  current ;  whereas,  as 
has  been  pointed  out,  the  affair  in  the  spinal  centres  is  much  more 
complex  than  that.  We  mean  by  reflex  action  function  which  is 
performed  by  the  nervous  centres,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  without 
will  or  consciousness — mechanically ;  not  by  virtue  of  any  mysterious 
mental  agency,  but  by  virlue  of  the  properties  of  the  nerve  structure. 


1 62  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

connecting  the  past  with  the  future,  shall  we  come  at  the 
full  truth ;  the  present  individual  is  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  his  antecedents  in  the  past,  and  through  the 
examination  of  these  alone  do  we  arrive  at  the  adequate 
explanation  of  him.  It  would  be  the  function  of  an 
exhaustive  psychology,  having  found  any  faculty  to  be 
innate,  not  to  rest  content  there,  but  to  follow  steadily 
backwards  the  line  of  causation,  and  thus  to  display,  if 
possible,  its  manner  of  origin.  This  is  the  more  neces- 
sary with  the  lower  animals,  where  so  much  is  innate. 

Thus  much  concerning  the  general  functions  of  the 
spinal  cord  as  an  aggregation  of  independent  nerve  centres, 
so  far  as  they  bear  directly  upon  psychology.  It  must 
not  be  supposed  that  I  have  given  an  exhaustive  de- 
scription of  its  functions  in  the  animal  economy.  I  have 
spoken  of  its  intermittent  activity,  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  it  is  also  in  a  state  of  continuous  activity ;  the 
permanent  contraction  of  the  sphincter  being  due  ap- 
parently to  a  continuous  influence  exerted  upon  the 
motor  nerves  by  its  ganglionic  centres.  In  like  manner, 
all  muscles  that  have  antagonists,  as,  for  example,  the 
flexors  and  extensors  of  the  arm,  are  kept  in  a  certain 
degree  of  counter-activity,  maintain  a  certain  tonicity,  as 
is  immediately  evident  when  their  antagonists  are  para- 
lyzed ;  this  tonicity  disappearing  at  once  when  the  part  of 
the  spinal  cord  from  which  the  motor  nerves  proceed  is 
destroyed.  It  appears  also  to  be  of  a  reflex  character,  as 
it  disappears  when  the  excito-motor  or  sensory  nerves  of 
a  part  in  a  state  of  tonicity  are  cut  But  we  may  go  even 
farther,  and  discover  the  functions  of  the  spinal  cord  at 
work  in  the  intimate  processes  of  organic  activity.  Take 
one  example  of  this  far-reaching  action.  Certain  blood- 
vessels are  kept  in  a  state  of  moderate  contraction  by  the 
influence  of  vaso-motor  nerves  proceeding  from  ganglia 
lying  close  to  the  vessels,  which  ganglia  are  connected 
by  nerves  with  the  spinal  cord.  When  these  nerves  are 


ui.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  163 

irritated  the  action  of  the  ganglia  is  inhibited ;  they  cease 
to  stimulate  the  walls  of  the  vessels,  which  thereupon  dilate 
and  are  filled  with  blood,  so  that  the  organ  in  which  they 
are  distributed  becomes  swollen  and  turgid.  After  the 
irritation  of  the  nerves  has  ceased,  the  ganglia  regain 
their  power  and  cause  the  vessels  to  contract,  so  that  the 
organ  becomes  flaccid.  It  appears,  then,  that  a  stimulus 
to  the  nerve  centres  of  the  spinal  cord  has  several  out- 
going channels  of  activity :  it  may  act  on  the  muscles, 
voluntary  or  involuntary,  of  the  body,  producing  visible 
movements;  or  it  may  act  upon  the  vessels,  enlarging 
or  diminishing  their  calibre,  and  so  modifying  the  nutri- 
tion and  function  of  the  parts  supplied  by  them ;  or  it 
may,  as  other  experiments  have  shown,  act  directly  upon 
the  elements  of  a  tissue,  and  so  affect  directly  nutrition  and 
secretion  ;  or  it  may  pass  to  other  nerve  centres,  and  so 
occasion  a  variety  of  indirect  effects.  How  manifold,  far- 
reaching,  and  important  these  indirect  effects  may  be,  the 
experiments  before-mentioned  on  the  frog  and  the  dog 
will  help  us  to  realise.  When  we  find  movements  that  are 
going  on  to  be  suddenly  arrested  by  a  new  stimulus  to  the 
spinal  cord,  and  consider  what  a  complicated  mechanism 
it  is,  and  how  many  stimuli  it  receives,  we  may  imagine 
vaguely  what  a  variety  of  intricate  and  complicated 
functions,  though  we  wot  not  of  them,  it  is  continually 
discharging  every  moment  of  our  lives. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  describe  those 
special  functions  of  the  spinal  cord  which  belong  more 
properly  to  a  treatise  on  physiology ;  I  am  mainly  con- 
cerned with  those  more  general  reflex  functions  which 
play  so  large  a  part  in  human  activity,  and  which  have, 
therefore,  an  essential  place  in  psychology.  An  accurate 
knowledge  of  them  affords  the  only  solid  basis  from  which 
to  prosecute  inquiry  into  the  functions  of  the  higher 
cerebral  centres.  We  have  seen  that  the  spinal  cord  pos- 
sesses that  power  of  retention  which  in  the  higher  centres 


164  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

we  designate  memory  ;  that  by  virtue  of  this  power  an  act 
done  for  the  second  time  contains  something  from  the 
first  act,  and  is  done  easier  on  that  account ;  that  the 
faculty  is  strengthened  by  exercise,  as  memory  is,  until  it 
becomes  completely  automatic  ;  and  that  an  association  or 
catenation  of  movements  may  be  organised  in  the  nerve 
centres,  whereby  movements  that  have  taken  place 
together  several  times  may  finally  be  so  firmly  bound 
together  that  there  may  be  the  greatest  difficulty,  or  it 
may  be  actually  impossible,  to  separate  them,  just,  in  fact, 
as  ideas  may  be  associated  in  the  supreme  cerebral  centres. 
A  spinal  cord  will  do  the  acts,  simple  or  complex,  which 
it  has  inherited  from  ancestors  or  acquired  by  education 
the  faculties  to  do,  but  if  required  to  do  new  and  strange 
acts,  to  associate  in  action  muscles  which  have  not  acted 
together  before,  it  will  manifest  an  utter  stupidity  and 
impotence.  It  is  an  organised  mechanism  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  former ;  it  must  be  gradually  organised 
as  a  mechanism  in  order  to  accomplish  the  latter. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  that  the  reflex  functions  of 
the  spinal  cord  were  distinctly  recognised  by  the  physio- 
logist long  before  the  anatomist  was  in  a  condition  to 
give  the  physical  explanation.  It  is  only  recently  that 
the  nerve  fibres  which  pass  to  or  from  the  spinal  cord 
have  been  proved  to  be  connected  with  the  unipolar, 
bipolar,  and  multipolar  cells  of  its  grey  substance ;  and 
this  so  plainly  as  to  justify  the  belief  that  an  isolated 
apolar  nervous  cell  does  not  exist  in  the  spinal  cord  or 
brain.  For  the  conveyance  of  an  impression  to  the 
grey  centres,  and  for  the  passage  of  the  reacting  force  out- 
wards, there  is  thus  revealed  a  definite  physical  path,  along 
which  the  current  of  molecular  activity  travels.  From 
the  cells  with  which  nerves  are  connected,  again,  other 
processes  go  to  join  neighbouring  cells,  and  thus,  forming 
a  connecting  path  between  them,  enable  them  to  act 
together :  hundreds  of  ganglionic  cells  -xre  yoked  together 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  165 

by  such  anastomoses,  and,  functionally  co-ordinated  there- 
by, represent  the  centres  of  innervation  of  corresponding 
systems  of  motor  nerves.  By  similar  anastomoses  the  gang 
lionic  cells  of  different  nervous  centres  are  connected,  and 
in  this  way  a  means  is  afforded  for  the  communication  of 
the  activity  of  one  centre  to  another;  A  consideration  of 
the  nervous  system  of  the  Annelida  will  assist  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  physiological  nature  of  the  spinal  cord.  In 
those  humble  creatures  the  central  nervous  system  con- 
sists of  a  ganglionic  apparatus,  each  separate  ganglion  of 
which  is  united  to  that  which  precedes  it,  and  to  that 
which  follows  it,  by  longer  or  shorter  nervous  connexions.* 
Now  the  spinal  cord  of  the  Vertebrata  may  be  considered 
as  an  analogous  ganglionic  apparatus,  the  connecting 
cords  of  which  are  not  seen  by  reason  of  the  coalescence 
of  the  ganglia.  From  a  physiological  point  of  view,  there- 
fore, the  grey  substance  may  be  considered  as  formed  ot 
distinct  segments,  each  segment  consisting  of  a  group  or 
association  of  cells,  and  having  connected  with  it  the 
roots  of  two  anterior  motor  and  two  posterior  sensory 
nerves.  Many,  therefore,  are  the  channels  by  which  the 
activity  excited  in  the  nerve-cell  by  the  stimulus  of  the 
efferent  nerve  may  be  discharged :  it  may  be  at  once 
reflected  on  an  efferent  nerve,  and  through  it  discharge 
one  or  other  of  the  functions  which  we  have  previously 
described  ;  or  it  may  pass  to  other  interconnected  cells, 
and,  acting  thus  upon  a  system  of  nerves,  produce  associ- 
ated movements,  either  such  as  proceed  from  the  cord 

*  Or  take  the  bee  as  an  illustration.  If  its  head  be  suddenly  cut 
off,  and  honey  applied  to  its  proboscis,  sucking  movements  are  made, 
showing  that  the  co-ordinating  centres  for  these  movements  are  in 
the  head  segment.  The  body,  when  separated  from  the  head, 
makes  movements  as  if  for  collecting  pollen,  and  if  it  be  placed  upon 
its  back,  it  gets  on  to  its  feet  again  ;  the  centres  for  these  movements 
being  in  the  thoracic  segment.  If  the  abdomen  be  cut  off,  it  is 
found  that  the  centre  for  stinging  movements  is  in  this  segment. 
Rcifhert  and  Du  Bats'  Archsv*  H.  I.  47,  1875. 


166  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CUAP. 

nearly  on  the  same  level  as  the  afferent  nerve  enters,  or 
from  a  different  level ;  or,  lastly,  it  may  pass  upwards, 
and  excite  the  higher  functionally  co-ordinated  centres. 

To  Pfliiger  belongs  the  merit  of  having  first  attempted 
to  systematise  the  laws  of  the  reflex  movements.  They 
are  : — i.  The  law  of 'simultaneous  conduction  for  one-sided 
reflex  movements.  When  a  reflex  movement  takes  place 
on  one  side  of  the  body  only,  in  answer  to  a  stimulus,  it 
is  always  on  that  side  of  the  body  on  which  the  irritation 
of  the  afferent  nerve  operates ;  the  reason  being  pro- 
bably that  the  motor  nerves  proceed  from  ganglionic 
cells  which  are  in  direct  connection  with  the  stimulated 
afferent  nerves. — 2.  The  law  of  symmetry  of  reflex  action. 
When  a  stimulus  has  produced  reflex  movements  on  one 
side,  and  its  continuance  or  its  further  extension  in  the 
spinal  cord  produces  movements  of  the  opposite  side, 
then  the  corresponding  muscles  only  of  this  side  are 
affected.  This  is  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the  commissural 
system,  which  connects  together  the  corresponding  gang- 
lionic cells  of  the  two  halves  of  the  cord. — 3.  The  un- 
equally intense  reflex  action  of  the  two  sides  in  the  event 
of  both  being  affected.  When  the  reflex  action  is 
stronger  on  one  side  than  upon  the  other,  the  stronger 
movements  take  place  upon  the  side  of  the  irritation. — 
4.  The  law  of  irradiation  of  reflex  action,  by  which  an 
extension  of  reflex  action  takes  place  from  the  nerves  in 
which  it  first  appears  to  neighbouring  ones,  owing  to  the 
communications  between  the  different  systems  or  groups 
of  ganglionic  cells.  When  the  excitation  of  an  afferent 
cerebral  nerve  is  transferred  to  motor  nerves,  it  is 
observed  that  the  roots  of  both  sorts  of  nerves  are 
placed  nearly  upon  the  same  level  in  the  central  organ, 
or  that  the  motor  nerve  lies  a  little  behind  or  below, 
never  in  front  of  or  above,  the  afferent  nerve.  If  the 
reflex  action  spreads  further,  the  way  of  irradiation  is 
downwards  to  the  medulla  oblongata ;  stimulation  of  the 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  167 

optic  nerve,  for  instance,  produces  contraction  of  the 
iris.  In  the  spinal  cord  the  primarily  affected  motor 
nerve  lies  nearly  on  the  level  of  the  stimulated  sensory 
nerve.  But  if  the  reflex  action  spreads,  then  it  passes 
upwards  towards  the  medulla.  When  the  irritation  has 
arrived  at  the  medulla,  then  it  may  pass  downwards 
again. — 5.  The  reflex  action  produced  by  the  irritation 
of  a  sensory  nerve  can  only  appear  in  three  places, 
whether  one-sided  or  occurring  on  both  sides  of  the 
body,  (a)  It  appears  in  the  motor  nerves  which  lie 
nearly  on  the  same  level  with  the  excited  sensory  nerve. 
(p)  If  reflex  action  implicates  the  motor  nerves  on  a 
different  level,  these  motor  nerves  are  constantly  such  as 
spring  from  the  medulla  oblongata :  tetanus  and  hysteri- 
cal convulsions  in  consequence  of  local  irritations  fur- 
nish examples,  (c)  The  reflex  action  affects  the  muscles 
of  the  body  generally  ;  the  principal  focus  of  irradiation 
thereof  being  the  medulla  oblongata. 

I  go  on  next  to  indicate  briefly  the  causes  which  affect 
the  functional  activity  of  the  spinal  cord  ;  the  interest  of 
the  study  lying  in  the  fact  that  similar  causes  affect  the 
functions  of  the  higher  nerve  centres,  and  are  the  morbid 
conditions  of  the  various  phenomena  of  mental  dis- 
orders : — 

i.  As  an  original  fact,  the  ganglionic  cells  may  have 
a  greater  or  less  stability  of  composition.  It  sometimes 
happens  that  a  child  is  born  with  so  great  an  instability 
of  nerve  element,  that  the  most  violent  convulsions  ensue 
on  the  occasion  of  very  slight  irritation.  Or  the  evil 
may  be  less  serious,  and  the  individual  may  be  equal  to 
the  ordinary  emergencies  of  a  quiet,  favourably  spent 
life ;  but  there  is  an  absence  of  that  reserve  power 
necessary  to  meet  the  extraordinary  emergencies  and 
unusual  strain  of  adverse  events.  When,  therefore,  an 
unaccustomed  stress  is  laid  upon  the  feeble  nerve  ele- 
ment, it  is  unequal  to  the  demand  made  upon  it,  and 


168  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

breaks  down  into  a  rapid  degeneration.  This  innate 
feebleness  is  evinced  by  an  excessive  irritability ;  it  is 
truly  an  irritable  weakness ;  and  its  most  common  cause 
is  an  unfortunate  inheritance,  the  curse  of  a  bad  descent. 
Any  sort  of  disease  of  the  nervous  system  in  the  parents 
seems  to  predispose  more  or  less  to  this  ill  condition  of 
the  child ;  the  acquired  deterioration  of  the  parent  be- 
coming the  inborn  organic  feebleness  of  the  offspring. 

The  degeneration  of  nerve  element  in  the  ganglionic 
cells  reveals  itself  in  a  disturbance  of  the  co-ordinate  or 
aim  working  activity  which,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
marks  the  highest  development  of  its  function.  Convul- 
sions are  the  sure  signs  of  a  weakness  or  lowered  ' 
vitality  of  nerve  element, — a  defect  which,  though  we 
cannot  yet  ascertain  its  exact  nature,  certainly  implies  an 
unstable  equilibrium  of  its  organic  constitution.  Each 
central  nerve-cell  exists  in  close  relations,  physical  and 
physiological,  with  other  nerve-cells  ;  when,  regardless  of 
these  relations,  it  reacts  directly  outwards  on  its  own 
account,  it  is  very  much  like  an  individual  in  a  social 
system  who,  by  reason  of  madness,  or  of  a  criminal  dis- 
position, rejects  the  restraint  of  social  relations  and 
breaks  out  in  mischievous  anti-social  activity. 

Not  only  may  an  excess  of  irritability  be  a  defect  in 
the  nature  of  the  ganglionic  cell,  but  this  may  be  defec- 
tive also  by  reason  of  a  great  insensibility  of  nature  and 
a  want  of  power  of  assimilation.  In  congenital  idiots 
the  central  cells  of  the  cord  do  plainly  sometimes  partake 
of  the  degeneracy  of  the  brain,  and  are  idiotic  also  ; 
they  are  incapable  of  receiving  impressions  with  any 
vividness,  and  of  retaining  the  traces  or  residua  of  such 
as  they  do  receive— incapable  of  education.  Spasms  of 
the  limbs,  sometimes  limited  to  the  toe,  to  one  arm  or 
leg,  at  other  times  more  general  •  contractions  of  a 
foot,  or  of  the  knees  to  such  degree  as  to.  make  the 
heels  touch  the  buttocks ;  more  frequent  still,  paralytic 


in  ]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  169 

conditions  of  varying  degree  and  extent,  and  atrophied 
limbs,  now  and  then  indulging  in  convulsive  movement 
— all  these  morbid  states  are  met  with  in  idiots,  and, 
though  in  part  attributable  to  the  brain,  are  certainly  in 
part  due  to  degeneration  of  a  spinal  cord  utterly  obli- 
vious of  its  design  or  final  purpose  in  the  universe.  In 
some  cases  where  the  morbid  degeneration  is  not  so 
extreme,  it  is  not  impossible  to  teach  such  combinations 
of  movements  as  are  necessary  for  the  common  work  of 
life.  It  may  be  observed  incidentally  that  the  ease  and 
rapidity  with  which  those  idiots  who  have  by  persever- 
ance been  taught  difficult  feats  of  action  perform  them, 
and  the  machine-like  exactness  of  their  movements,  dis- 
play well  the  important  functions  of  the  spinal  cord  as  an 
independent  nerve  centre ;  for  they  display  its  functions 
in  a  case  in  which  the  influence  of  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres is  sometimes  almost  excluded. 

2.  The  functional  action  of  the  spinal  ganglionic  cells 
may  suffer  from  the  too  powerful  or  prolonged  action  of 
an  external  stimulus,  or  from  an  activity  continued  with- 
out due  interval  of  rest  The  molecular  degeneration  or 
waste,  which  is  the  condition  of  functional  activity,  must 
be  repaired  by  rest  and  nutrition^  the  nerve-cell  is  no 
inexhaustible  fountain  of  force,  but  must  take  in  from 
one  quarter  what  it  gives  out  in  another ;  and  if  due 
time  be  not  allowed  and  proper  material  be  not  supplied 
for  the  development  of  its  highly  vital  structure  by  assi- 
milation of  matter  of  a  lower  quality,  it  is  certain  that, 
notwithstanding  the  best  innate  constitution,  deterioration 
must  ensue  as  surely  as  a  fuelless  fire  must  go  out.  In 
that  degeneration  of  the  spinal  cord  which  sometimes 
occurs  in  consequence  of  sexual  vice  or  excess,  one  of 
the  first  symptoms  is  a  loss  of  co-ordinating  power  over 
the  motions  of  the  legs — a  loss,  in  other  words,  of  that 
which  is  the  last  organized  faculty  of  the  spinal  centres. 
The  starlings  of  the  limbs  and  the  partial  contractions  of 


i?o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Certain  muscles  which  may  follow  do  not  evince  in- 
creased power,  as  some  have  heedlessly  fancied,  but  are 
the  indications  of  lowered  vitality ;  they  are  the  inco- 
herent manifestations  of  a  degenerate  instability  of  nerve 
element.  When  such  a  morbid  condition  of  things  is 
brought  about,  there  is  necessarily  a  failure  in  the  power 
of  the  ganglionic  cells  to  receive  and  assimilate  impres- 
sions :  hence  it  is  that  in  general  paralytics,  in  whom  the 
memory  of  each  independent  nervous  centre  is  decayed, 
there  is  not  only  an  inability  to  accomplish  successfully 
the  actions  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed — as,  for 
example,  an  inability  of  a  musician,  whom  from  his  con- 
versation one  would  deem  quite  capable  of  his  work,  to 
perform  on  his  accustomed  instrument ;  but  there  is  also 
the  impossibility  of  teaching  them  new  combinations  of 
movements.  In  other  sorts  of  lunatics  this  is  often 
possible  :  though  mentally  much  degenerate,  and  actually 
lost  for  ever  to  the  world,  they  may  by  persevering  train- 
ing be  made  useful  in  certain  simple  relations  to  which 
they  grow  and  react  as  automatic  machines,  their  own 
cerebral  hemispheres  not  interfering ;  the  general  para- 
lytics, in  whom  the  disease  has  advanced  so  far  as  to 
affect  the  spinal  cord,  cannot  thus  be  utilized. 

3.  The  supply  of  blood  and  the  condition  of  it  are 
manifestly  of  the  greatest  consequence  to  the  welfare  of 
the  spinal  cells.  The  grey  matter  of  the  cord  is  very 
richly  supplied  with  capillaries,  to  the  end  that  there  may 
be  a  quick  renewal  of  blood  ministering  to  the  active 
interchange  that  goes  on  between  the  ganglionic  cell  and 
the  nutrient  fluid ;  the  enormous  consumption  of  force 
in  nervous  function  demanding  such  an  abundance  of 
supply.  What  Mr.  Bain  describes  as  the  spontaneous 
energy  of  nerve  centres,  and  lays  so  much  stress  on  as 
the  foundation  of  volition,  is  probably  the  result  of  the 
state  of  the  blood  in  them — either  of  its  compostion 
or  of  its  distribution.  We  know  at  any  rate  that  the 


IU.J  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  171 

movements  of  inspiration  are  provoked  by  an  excess  of 
carbonic  acid  in  the  blood  circulating  through  the  medulla 
oblongata  and  the  spinal  cord.  How  many  modifications 
of  nutrition,  of  secretion,  and  of  the  distribution  of 
blood  in  the  different  organs,  of  which  we  can  give  no 
account,  may  be  due  to  the  character  or  the  distribution 
of  the  blood  circulating  in  the  spinal  cord  !  When  the 
supply  of  blood  is  suddenly  cut  off,  as  in  the  well-known 
experiments  of  Stannius,  Brown-Sequard,  and  Schiff,  the 
nervous  activity  is  presently  paralysed,  and  rigor  mortis 
of  the  muscles  ensues.  When  the  supply  of  blood  is 
soon  restored  to  a  part  in  which  rigor  mortis  has  taken 
place,  as  in  Brown-Se'quard's  experiment  of  injecting 
warm  blood  into  the  stiffened  arm  of  an  executed 
criminal,  the  muscles  presently  regain  their  contracti- 
lity, and  the  nerves  their  irritability.  As  a  complete 
cutting-off  of  the  blood  is  paralysis  of  nerve  element, 
so  a  deficiency  of  blood,  or  of  material  in  it  fitted  for 
the  nutrition  of  nerve,  is  to  the  extent  of  its  existence  a 
cause  of  degeneration  or  instability  of  nerve  element. 
Such  deterioration  is  exhibited  by  cachectic  and  anaemic 
persons  in  a  great  irritability,  and  in  a  disposition  to 
spasms  or  convulsions — an  acquired  condition  not  unlike 
that  which  is  sometimes  inherited. 

The  state  of  the  blood  may  be  vitiated  by  reason  of 
the  presence  of  some  foreign  matter  which,  whether  bred 
in  it  or  introduced  from  without,  acts  injuriously  or  as  a 
direct  poison  on  the  individual  nerve-cells.  Strychnia 
notably  so  affects  them  that,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
slightest  stimulus,  they  react  in  convulsive  activity ;  while 
the  curare  poison,  on  the  other  hand,  produces  a  sort  of 
stupor  or  coma,  and  paralyses  all  activity.  Curiously 
enough  the  methyl  derivatives  of  strychnia,  the  iodide  of 
methyl-strychnium  and  the  sulphate  of  methyl-strychnium, 
according  to  the  observations  of  Drs.  Frazer  and  Crum 
Brown,  produce  exactly  the  same  symptoms  as  the 


172  TILE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

curare ;  showing  that  a  slight  difference  in  the  chemical 
composition  of  a  substance  may  occasion  a  great  differ- 
ence in  its  physiological  effects.  Moreover,  if  a  suffi- 
ciently large  quantity  of  strychnia  be  introduced  under 
the  skin  of  a  frog,  the  effects  may  closely  resemble  those 
produced  by  the  curare;  death  taking  place  without  any, 
or  with  only  very  feeble,  convulsions.  Opium,  which 
usually  produces  coma  in  man,  produces  convulsions  in 
frogs,  and  sometimes  in  children.  We  might,  were  it 
needful,  accept  these  different  effects  of  poisons,  which 
are  alike  positively  injurious  to  the  integrity  "of  nerve 
element,  as  evidence  that  convulsions  do  not  mean 
strength :  they  are  not  the  result  of  an  increase  in  the 
proper  vital  activity  of  parts ;  on  the  contrary,  they  evince 
degenerate  function  and  are  the  forerunners  of  paralysis. 
The  various  vegetable  poisons  indicate  also,  by  their 
different  effects  upon  the  same  and  upon  different  struc- 
tures, the  fine  differences  of  composition  in  the  gang- 
lionic  centres  of  the  central  nervous  system ;  in  this 
way  they  throw  some  light  as  chemical  reagents  upon 
the  nature  of  physiological  functions,  and  they  are  the 
most  sensitive  reagents  in  this  regard  which  we  yet 
possess. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  presence  of  too 
much  blood  in  the  spinal  cord  may  be  as  baneful  as  an 
insufficient  supply.  All  the  symptoms  of  disorder  of 
nerve  element  which  accompany  anaemia  may  certainly 
be  produced  also  by  congestion  or  congestive  hyperaemia ; 
the  proper  nutritive  interchanges,  the  supply  of  suitable 
nutrient  products  and  the  removal  of  effete  products, 
being  as  much  impeded  or  checked  by  stagnation  as  by 
deficient  supply  of  blood.  The  blood-vessels  are  fur- 
nished with  vaso-motor  nerves  which  regulate  their  calibre 
and  therefore  the  amount  of  the  supply  of  blood,  and 
these  nerves  are  more  or  less  plainly  under  the  control  of 
spinal  centres.  It  is  obvious  that  an  undue  contraction 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  173 

or  dilatation  of  the  vessels  may  affect  temporarily  the 
function,  or  permanently  the  nutrition,  of  the  nerve 
centres,  and  so  occasion  morbid  phenomena. 

4.  The  existence  of  a  persistent  cause  of  eccentric 
irritation,  whether  the  result  of  injury  or  disease  in  some 
part  of  the  body,  may  give  rise  to  a  morbid  state  of  the 
spinal  nerve-cells  by  a  so-called  sympathetic  or  reflex 
action.  This  may  be  considered  a  pathological  appli- 
cation of  physiological  function  which  is  in  constant 
operation.  Volkmann  has  observed  movements  to  be 
produced  in  the  limbs  of  a  decapitated  frog  by  stimula- 
tion of  the  intestinal  canal ;  the  results  being  much  more 
evident  if  the  animal  has  previously  been  poisoned  with 
strychnia.  In  a  well-known  experiment  by  Goltz  a  sharp 
tapping  upon  the  abdomen  of  a  frog  produces  a  sudden 
arrest  of  the  heart's  action;  and  it  has  been  recently 
shown  by  Tarchanoff  that  when  a  loop  of  the  intestine 
with  its  corresponding  piece  of  mesentery  is  pulled  out 
of  the  abdomen  of  a  frog,  and  exposed  to  the  air  for  a 
few  hours  until  if  becomes  inflamed,  the  slightest  touch 
of  the  inflamed  loop  will  suffice  to  produce  a  stoppage 
of  the  heart's  action  within  from  a  few  seconds  to  half  a 
minute.*  The  stimulus  is  carried  to  the  medulla  oblon- 
gata,  there  reflected  upon  the  vagus  nerve,  and  operates 
through  it  upon  the  ganglia  of  the  heart ;  for  the  effect 
does  not  take  place  if  conduction  be  arrested  by  section 
of  the  vagus  or  by  poisoning  with  curare.  The  convulsions 
which  sometimes  take  place  during  teething  in  children, 
owing  to  the  presence  of  worms  in  the  intestines,  are 
familiar  examples  of  sympathetic  or  reflex  effect  upon  a 
susceptible  growing  nervous  system.  It  is  necessary  to 
distinguish  two  kinds  of  effects  of  this  reflex  action — or, 
perhaps,  different  degrees  of  the  same  kind  of  effect — 
namely,  a  reflex  functional  modification  and  a  reflex  nu- 
tritive modification. 

*  Archiv  de  Physiologic,  1875,  P-  4°8- 
9 


174  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  irritation  of  a  decayed  tooth  may,  as  is  well  known, 
give  rise  to  a  contraction  of  the  muscles  of  one  side  of 
the  neck,  or  to  a  violent  facial  neuralgia,  or  to  blindness 
or  deafness,  all  which  presently  disappear  upon  the  re- 
moval of  the  cause  of  the  mischief.  A  functional  derange- 
ment only  has  existed  so  far.  But  the  irritation  of  a  bad 
tooth  produces  a  greater  and  more  lasting  effect,  when, 
as  does  now  and  then  happen,  an  abscess  in  the  glands 
of  the  neck  takes  place  in  consequence  of  it,  and  remains 
an  incurable  fistula  until  the  removal  of  the  scarce  sus- 
pected cause.  The  nutritive  derangement  has  been 
caused  and  kept  up  by  the  reflex  irritation.  It  must  cer- 
tainly be  allowed  that  the  functional  disorder,  when  it 
alone  seems  to  exist,  does  testify  to  some  kind  of  change 
in  the  molecular  relations  of  the  ganglionic  cells ;  but  as 
the  abnormal  modification  vanishes  the  moment  the  real 
cause  of  mischief,  the  bad  tooth,  is  gone,  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  view  the  disturbed  function  as  evidence  of  any 
serious  chemical  or  organic  derangement  in  the  nerve-cells. 
With  the  continuance  of  the  cause  of  irritation,  the  func- 
tional disorder  undoubtedly  may,  and  is  liable  to,  pass 
into  disorder  of  nutrition.  The  relations  of  these  differ- 
ent degrees  or  kinds  of  derangement  to  the  morbid  cause 
are  such  that  we  might  not  unfairly  represent  the  sole 
existing  functional  derangement  as  due  to  a  modification 
of  the  polar  molecules  of  the  nerve  element,  while  the 
abnormal  nutrition  may  be  supposed  to  mark  an  actual 
chemical  change  in  its  constitution. 

Again,  as  the  spinal  centres  minister  both  to  our  animal 
life  and  to  our  organic  life,  they  necessarily  have,  in  the 
former  case,  a  periodical  function ;  in  the  latter  case,  a 
continuous  function.  When,  therefore,  a  morbid  condition 
of  the  ganglionic  cells  subserving  animal  life  exists,  the 
functional  derangement  will  probably  be  not  continuous 
but  intermittent.  Intermittence  of  symptoms  is  indeed  a 
common,  almost  a  constant,  feature  of  nervous  disease, 


HI.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  175 

and  I  know  not  why  we  should  be  surprised  thereat,  if  we 
reflect  that  alternation  of  rest  and  activity  is  the  law  of 
the  nervous  functions  of  animal  life.  Thus,  in  epilepsy, 
it  appears  as  if  the  reacting  centres  must  be  gradually 
charged  until  they  reach  a  certain  tension  or  instability, 
when  the  statical  equilibrium  is  destroyed,  and  they  dis- 
charge themselves  violently.  Something  of  the  same  kind 
takes  place  in  the  poisonous  action  of  strychnia :  a  dog 
so  poisoned  will  fall  down  in  convulsions,  but,  according 
to  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk,  they  cease  after  a  time,  and 
the  animal  seems  to  be  perfectly  well ;  even  for  so  long 
as  an  hour  it  may  be  touched  or  stroked  without  harm  ; 
after  which  the  susceptibility  again  becomes  so  great  that 
by  simply  blowing  upon  the  skin  convulsions  are  repro- 
duced. The  molecular  explosions  in  the  intimate  elements 
of  nerve  tissue  produce  molecular  exhaustion ;  and  when 
the  energy  of  the  parts  is  restored  by  respite  and  repair, 
the  morbid  instability  is  restored,  so  long  at  any  rate  as 
the  morbid  conditions  remain.  If  the  dog  can  be  kept 
alive  until  the  strychnia  is  eliminated  by  the  secretion, 
then  the  restoration  of  energy  will  be  the  gradual  restor- 
ation of  a  stable  equilibrium  of  molecules;  the  convulsions 
will  become  less  and  less  violent  and  finally  cease ;  and 
the  animal  will  recover. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  function  of  the  spinal 
centres  ministering  to  the  organic  life  is  deranged,  the 
morbid  effect  will  most  likely  be  continuous.  The 
experiments  of  Lister,  showing  that  the  movements  of 
the  granules  in  the  pigment  cells  of  the  frog's  skin 
are  under  the  control  of  the  spinal  system,  and  the 
investigations  of  Bernard  and  others,  agree  to  prove 
that  the  cerebro-spinal  axis  may  not  only  control  the 
contractions  of  the  small  arteries,  but  that  it  directly  in- 
fluences the  organic  elements  engaged  in  nutrition  and 
secretion.  The  moment  food  is  introduced  into  the 
mouth  there  is  a  flow  of  saliva  and  of  gastric  juice. 


1 76  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Numerous  examples  have  been  of  old  quoted  of  distant 
modifications  of  nutrition  in  consequence  of  some  irrita- 
tion of  a  centripetal  nerve :  a  large  secretion  of  extremely 
acid  gastric  juice  has  been  cured  by  the  extirpation  of 
painful  piles ;  ptyalism  is  produced  sometimes,  as  lachry- 
mation  frequently  is,  by  neuralgia  of  the  fifth  nerve; 
irritation  of  the  uterus,  or  of  the  skin  of  the  breasts,  or  of 
the  mucous  membrane  of  the  vagina,  has  been  known  to 
give  rise  to  the  secretion  of  milk  ;  and  menstruation  may 
follow  irritation  of  the  ovaries,  or  the  application  of  warm 
poultices  to  the  breasts.  We  witness  phenomena  due  to 
this  reflex  nutritive  action  again  in  the  sympathy  which 
one  eye  so  often  exhibits  with  disease  of  the  other ;  in 
the  congestion  of  the  eye  or  the  actual  amaurosis  which 
sometimes  accompanies  severe  neuralgia;  in  the  para- 
plegia due  to  displacement  or  disease  of  the  uterus ;  and 
in  many  other  instances  too  numerous  to  be  mentioned. 
Pfliiger  quotes  from  Dieffenbach  a  striking  case,  which 
admirably  illustrates  the  effects  of  an  eccentric  irritation 
upon  the  spinal  cord.  A  young  girl  fell  upon  a  wine-glass, 
and  cut  one  hand  with  a  piece  of  the  broken  glass ;  for 
years  afterwards  she  suffered  from  violent  neuralgic  pains 
and  emaciation,  with  contraction  and  complete  useless- 
ness  of  the  hand;  she  was  afflicted  also  with  severe 
attacks  of  epilepsy.  On  cutting  through  the  cicatrix  of 
the  old  wound,  a  minute  splinter  of  glass,  which  had 
wounded  the  nerve,  was  detected ;  the  nerve  was  also 
thickened  and  hardened.  After  removal  of  the  glass,  the 
neuralgia  and  epilepsy  disappeared,  and  the  girl  recovered 
the  entire  use  of  her  hand.  These  instances  of  morbid 
reflex  function  prove  how  complete  is  the  unity  of  the 
bodily  life,  and  how  important  and  far-reaching  may  be, 
through  the  agency  of  the  unifying  nervous  system,  the 
effects  of  disorder  of  what  seems  a  trivial  part.  In  truth, 
we  can  call  nothing  trivial  in  the  marvellous  consensus  of 
energies  which  a  living  organism  is ;  and  a  prudent  man 


ill.]  TIfE  SPIRAL  CORD.  177 

will  deem  it  a  sacred  duty  to  keep  holy,  i.e.  healthy,  the 
temple  of  his  body.* 

5.  lastly,  the  severance  of  the  connection  between  the 
brain  and  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  spinal  cord  seems 
in  some  degree  to  affect  their  function.  When  a  nerve 
is  cut  across  in  the  living  body,  the  peripheral  end  soon 
undergoes  fatty  degeneration,  while  the  central  end  re- 
mains unchanged  after  years;  and  this  degeneration  is 
not  owing  solely  to  the  inactivity  of  the  nerve,  for  it  still 
takes  place  when  the  nerve  is  regularly  stimulated,  and 
takes  place  much  less  quickly  in  frogs  and  cold-blooded 
animals,  in  which  nutrition  is  sluggish,  than  in  warm- 
blooded animals,  in  which  it  is  active.  It  is  perhaps  a 
fair  conclusion  that  the  nerve  fibres  have  their  nutrition 
subjected  in  some  measure  to  the  nerve  centres;  that 
these  play  in  relation  to  them  the  part  of  nutritive 
centres.  After  apoplexy  in  or  about  the  corpus  stria- 
turn,  Turck  professes  to  have  found  granular  cells  in  the 
course  of  the  fibres  as  they  pass  downwards,  so  that  such 
cells  were  met  with  in  the  spinal  cord  on  the  opposite 
side  to  the  seat  of  disease.  It  is  known,  too,  that  the 
removal  of  the  brain  in  the  lower  animals  increases  the 
ease  with  which  reflex  movements  take  place ;  and  there 
are  many  cases  on  record  in  which  the  reflex  action 
has  been  increased  in  man  when  disease  or  injury  has 
interrupted  the  continuity  of  the  spinal  centres  with  the 
brain.  May  we  not,  then,  conclude  from  such  facts  that 
a  positive  nutritive  influence  is  exercised  by  the  brain 
upon  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  cord  and  upon  the  nerve 
fibres  which  proceed  from  the  cerebro-spinal  axis,  as  well 

*  It  is  known  that  a  small  cause  of  irritation  may  cause  tetanus. 
Dr.  Taylor  {Medical  Jurisprudence)  mentions  a  fatal  case  of  tetanus, 
which  was  at  first  thought  to  be  idiopathic,  but  which  was  found  to 
have  been  really  caused  by  a  small  splinter  of  wood  that  had  pene- 
trated the  thumb.  And  Dr.  G.  Johnson  has  recorded  a  case  of 
tetanus  which  was  cured  by  the  removal  of  a  small  piece  of  the  fibre 
of  cloth  from  the  scar  of  an  old  wound. 


178  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

as  by  the  spinal  centres  on  the  nerve  fibres  which  proceed 
directly  from  them  and  upon  the  subordinate  ganglia? 
In  factr  may  we  not  justly  conclude  that  this  influence, 
which  was  expressed  by  old  writers  as  the  secretion  of  the 
vital  spirits  by  the  brain,  is  exerted  by  every  nerve  centre 
on  the  centre  which  is  subordinate  to  it,*  and  on  the  nerves 
which  proceed  from  it;  and  that  the  inhibitory  action 
which  a  higher  nerve  centre  is  observed  to  have  upon  the 
function  of  a  lower  centre  may  be  really  an  instance  of  its 
exercise  ?  The  inference  would  be  agreeable  to  what  we 
know  of  the  direct  functional  action  of  the  brain  upon  that 
of  the  cord  ;  the  reflex  acts  in  health  being  for  the  most 
part  notably  subordinate  to  the  control  of  the  will  As  a 
guiding  influence  passes  from  above  downwards  when  the 
cerebro-spinal  system  is  ministering  to  the  functions  of 
animal  life,  so  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  brain,  in  the 
accomplishment  of  its  function  as  an  organ  of  organic 
life,  exerts  some  power  which  is  favourable  to  the  nutri- 
tion of  the  parts  which  lie  below  it,  and  which  are  the 
instruments  through  which  it  acts.  This  influence  being 
withdrawn,  an  exaggeration  of  the  excitability  of  the  cord 
occurs,  such  as  a  wound  causing  tetanus  may  produce,  or 
such  as  was  produced  by  Brown-Sequard  in  guinea-pigs, 
when,  having  injured  their  spinal  cord  two  or  three  weeks 
before,  he  was  able  to  excite  epileptiform  convulsions  at 
will  by  pinching  the  skin  over  a  certain  area  of  the  face. 
It  is  true  that  some  have  thought  to  explain  in  another 
way  the  increase  in  the  reflex  movements  which  follows 
the  severance  of  connection  between  the  brain  and  cord ; 

*  "As  the  brain  secretes  the  vital  sphits,  and  as  in  animals  endowed 
with  brain  it  is  requisite  that  the  nerves  be  supplied  with  these,  as 
the  medium  for  the  transmission  of  impressions,  the  brain  must 
be  considered  as  being  necessary,  at  least,  to  the  continued  pro- 
duction of  nerve-actions  ;  unless  the  animal  be  so  constituted  that 
the  vital  spirits  are  secreted  in  the  medulla  of  the  nerves,  or  in  theU 
ganglia,  as  in  a  vertebrate  animals." — UNZKR  (op.  fit.),  p.  225 


lit.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  179 

they  have  attributed  it  to  the  augmented  energy  of  the 
spinal  centres,  and  to  the  concentration  of  the  stimulus, 
now  that  a  path  for  the  dispersion  of  its  force  is  cut  off. 
Such  theory  is  hardly  innocent  of  the  vulgar  error  of 
regarding  as  increased  energy  that  which  is  truly  a 
diminution  or  deterioration  of  the  higher  vital  energy  of 
the  part  The  co-ordinate  reflex  acts  which  take  place 
in  answer  to  the  natural  tactile  impressions  are  not 
made  more  energetic  or  effective  by  cutting  off  the 
influence  of  the  brain ;  only  the  irregular  reflex  move- 
ments that  follow  chemical,  electrical,  or  strong  me- 
chanical stimuli  are  increased.  One  most  important 
function  of  the  brain  is  to  exert  an  inhibitory  power  over 
the  nerve  centres  that  lie  below  it,  just  as  man  exercises 
a  beneficial  control  over  his  fellow  animals  of  a  lower 
order  of  dignity  ;  and  the  increased  irregular  activity  of 
the  lower  centres  that  have  escaped  from  control  betokens 
degeneration  :  it  is  like  the  turbulent,  aimless  action  of  a 
democracy  without  a  head. 

Such,  then,  are  the  disturbing  causes  which  may  affect 
the  activity  of  the  spinal  cord,  both  as  a  conducting  path 
and  as  an  independent  centre  of  the  generation  of  nerve- 
force.  When  we  reflect  upon  the  great  proportion  of  the 
daily  actions  of  life  that  are  effected  by  its  unconscious 
agency,  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive  how  important  is 
the  due  preservation  of  its  integrity.  No  culture  of  the 
mind,  however  careful,  no  effort  of  the  will,  however 
strong,  will  avail  to  prevent  irregular  and  convulsive 
action  when  a  certain,  degree  of  instability  of  nerve  ele- 
ment has,  from  one  cause  or  another,  been  produced  in 
the  spinal  cells.  It  would  be  as  absurd  to  preach  control 
to  the  spasms  of  chorea,  or  restraint  to  the  convulsions  of 
epilepsy,  as  to  preach  moderation  to  the  east  wind,  or 
gentleness  to  the  hurricane.  That  which  in  such  case 
has  its  foundation  in  a  definite  physical  cause  must  have 
its  cure  in  the  production  of  a  definite  physical  change. 


l8o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

So  certain  and  intimate  is  the  sympathy  between  the 
individual  nerve-cells  in  that  well-organized  common- 
wealth which  the  nervous  system  represents,  that  a  local 
disturbance  is  soon  felt  more  or  less  distinctly  throughout 
the  whole  state.  When  any  sericus  degeneration  of  the 
ganglionic  cells  of  the  cord  exists,  there  is  not  only  an 
indisposition  or  inability  to  carry  out  as  subordinate 
agents  the  commands  which  come  from  above  ;  but  there 
is  a  complaint  sent  upwards — a  moan  of  discontent  or 
pain  reaches  the  supreme  authority.  That  is  the  meaning 
of  the  feelings  of  weariness,  heaviness,  achings  of  the 
limbs,  and  utter  lassitude  which  accompany  disorder  of 
the  spinal  centres ;  and  the  convulsive  spasms  and  the 
local  contractions  or  paralysis  of  muscles  are  the  first 
signs  of  a  coming  rebellion.  If  the  warnings  do  not 
receive  timely  heed,  a  riot  may  easily  become  a  rebellion  ; 
for  when  organic  processes,  which  normally  go  on  without 
consciousness,  force  themselves  into  consciousness,  it  is 
the  certain  mark  of  a  vital  degeneration.  If  the  appeal 
is  made  in  vain,  then  further  degeneration  ensues.  Not 
only  is  there  irregular  revolutionary  action  of  a  subordi- 
nate, but  there  is  pro  tanto  a  weakening  of  the  supreme 
authority ;  it  is  less  able  to  control  what  is  more  difficult 
of  control.  When  due  subordination  of  parts  exists,  and 
the  individual  cell  conforms  to  the  laws  of  the  system, 
then  the  authority  of  the  head  is  strengthened.  A  foolish 
despot,  forgetting  in  the  pride  of  his  power  that  the 
strength  and  worth  of  a  government  flow  from  and  rest 
upon  the  well-being  of  the  governed,  may  fancy  that  he 
can  safely  disregard  the  cry  of  the  suffering  and  the 
oppressed  ;  but  when  he  closes  his  ears  to  complaints,  he 
closes  his  eyes  to  consequences,  and  finally  wakes  up  to 
find  his  power  slipped  from  him,  and  himself  entered 
upon  the  way  of  destruction.  So  is  it  with  the  nervous 
system  :  the  cells  are  the  individuals,  and,  as  in  the 
state,  so  here,  there  are  individuals  of  higher  dignity  and 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  181 

of  lower  dignity ;  but  the  well-being  and  power  of  the 
higher  individuals  are  entirely  dependent  upon  the  well- 
being  and  contentment  of  the  humbler  workers  in  the 
spinal  cord,  which  do  so  great  a  part  of  the  daily  work  of 
life.  The  form  of  government  is  that  of  a  constitutional 
monarchy,  in  which  every  interest  is  duly  represented 
through  adequate  channels,  and  in  which,  consequently, 
there  is  a  proper  subordination  as  well  as  co-ordination 
of  parts. 

I  have  lingered  thus  long  upon  the  spinal  cord,  because 
most  of  what  has  been  said  concerning  its  functions  may, 
with  the  necessary  change  of  terms,  be  applied  to  the 
higher  nervous  centres.  A  distinct  conception  of  the 
nature  and  mode  of  development  of  the  functions  of  the 
spinal  centres  is  the  best,  is  indeed  the  only  adequate, 
preparation  for  an  entrance  upon  the  study  of  cerebral 
function  ;  it  is  an  indispensable  prerequisite  to  the  right 
understanding  of  the  higher  displays  of  nervous  function, 
and  alone  fixes  the  sure  basis  whereon  to  build  a  true 
mental  science.*  In  this  way  we  apply  the  laws  gene- 
ralised from  the  more  simple  cases  to  disentangle  the 
phenomena  of  the  more  complex  cases.  Any  system  not 

*  In  the  Archiv.  fiir  Physiolog.  Heilkunde,  1843,  there  is  an  ex- 
cellent paper  by  Prof.Griesinger,  "  Ueber  psychische  Reflexactionen. 
mit  einem  Blick  auf  das  Wesen  der  psychischen  Krankheiten  ;"and 
another  in  the  same  Journal  for  1854,  "Neue  Beitrage  zur  Physio- 
logic und  Pathologic  des  Gehirns." 

In  the  Journal  of  Mental  Science  (January  1876)  is  an  histori- 
cal and  critical  paper  by  Dr.  Laycock,  entitled  "  Reflex,  Auto- 
matic, and  Unconscious  Cerebration,"  in  which  he  gives  a  full 
and  detailed  account  of  the  first  promulgation  by  himself,  in  this 
country,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  reflex  action  of  the  brain,  and  of 
its  subsequent  development.  It  appears  from  this  paper  that  he 
first  broached  the  doctrine  in  1840,  in  his  "Treatise  on  the  Nervous 
Diseases  of  Women,"  although  he  did  not  fully  expound  it  until  he 
read  a  paper  "On  the  Reflex  Function  of  the  Brain"  before  the 
British  Medical  Association  in  1844.  The  paper  was  afterwards 
published  in  the  British  and  Foreign  Medical  Reviau,  January  1845. 


182  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

so  founded  follows  not  the  order  of  development  in 
nature,  and  must  be  unstable  and  insecure :  Nature 
herself  protests  against  it  with  energetic  eloquence  when 
she  makes,  as  she  unquestionably  sometimes  does, 
morbid  action  of  the  cells  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
vicarious  of  the  morbid  action  of  the  spinal  cells. 

NOTES. 

*  (p.  139). — Pfliiger  compares  the  movements  of  a  decapitated 
animal  with  those  of  a  sleeping  man,  deeming  the  movements  in 
both  to  be  conscious.  He  tickled  the  right  nostril  of  a  sleeping  boy, 
and  the  lad  rubbed  it  with  his  right  hand  :  when  Pfliiger  tickled  the 
left  nostril  the  lad  rubbed  it  with  his  left  hand.  If  he  held  the 
sleeper's  right  hand  without  waking  him,  and  tickled  his  right 
nostril,  the  boy  first  made  attempts  with  his  right  hand  to  rub  it,  but 
when  this  did  not  succeed,  and  the  irritation  continued,  he  then 
made  use  of  the  left  hand. 

"  Crickets  allure  to  sexual  congress  after  decapitation  by  the 
vibration  of  their  wings  ;  and  Redi,  Bibiena,  and  others,  have  ob- 
served that  butterflies,  after  having  copulated  but  once  in  their  lives, 
repeat  the  function  repeatedly  when  decapitated,  and  the  females, 
after  sexual  congress,  deposit  their  eggs  as  carefully  as  if  excited 
thereto  by  their  instinct."  UNZER. —  On  the  New  System,  Syd.  Soc. 
Trans,  p.  287.  Thus  the  fluttering  of  the  wings  of  the  female  butter- 
fly excites  the  sexual  organs  of  the  male,  but  only  when  the  route 
has  been  laid  down  by  an  accomplished  sexual  act ;  for  no  such 
effect  is  produced  unless  sexual  congress  has  taken  place  at  least  once 
before  decapitation.  On  the  first  occasion  a  sensory  stimulus  must 
co-operate  with  the  purely  reflex  stimulus  ;  the  latter  suffices  after- 
wards. 

The  following  quotation  is  from  Spinoza,  as  translated  by  M. 
Saisset : — "  Personne,  en  effet,  n'a  determine  encore  ce  dont  le  corps 
est  capable ;  en  d'autres  termes,  personne  n'a  encore  appris  de 
1' experience  ce  que  le  corps  peut  faire  et  ce  qu'il  ne  peut  pas  faire, 
par  les  seules  lois  de  la  nature  corporelle  et  sans  recevoir  de  Tame 
aucune  determination."  "This  is  not  astonishing,"  he  adds,  "as 
no  one  has  sufficiently  studied  the  functions  of  the  body,"  and  in- 
stances the  marvellous  acts  of  animals  and  somnambulists— "  toutes 
choses  qui  montrent  assez  que  le  corps  humain,  par  les  seules  lois  de 
la  nature,  est  capable  d'une  foule  d'operations  qui  sont  pour  1'ame 


in.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  183 

jointe  a  cc  corps  un  objet  d'&onncment.  ....  J'ajoute  eufiu  que 
le  mccanisme  clu  corps  humaiu  est  fait  avcc  un  art  qui  surpassc  in- 
imiiiiont  1'industrie  humaine."  The  associating  link  of  many  move* 
ments — as,  for  example,  of  those  of  the  heart,  of  the  eye,  of  breath- 
ing— plainly  exists  in  the  conformation  of  the  nervous  centres  ;  the 
wisdom  or  design  is  exhibited  in  the  primary  arrangement,  whereby 
the  reactions  of  the  organism  necessarily  following  do,  as  a  rule, 
minister  to  the  furtherance  of  its  well-being. 

'  (p.  149). — "And  therefore  it  was  a  good  answer,"  said  Bacon, 
' '  that  was  made  by  one,  who,  when,  they  showed  him,  hanging  in  a 
temple,  a  picture  of  those  who  had  paid  their  vows  as  having  escaped 
shipwreck,  and  would  have  him  say  whether  he  did  not  now  acknow- 
ledge the  power  of  the  gods,  'Ay,'  asks  he  again,  'but  where  are 
they  painted  that  were  drowned  after  their  vows  ? '  "  Speaking  of 
final  causes,  upon  which  the  human  understanding  falls  back,  he 
says  that  they  "  have  clearly  relation  to  the  nature  of  man  rather 
than  to  the  nature  of  the  universe  ;  and  from  this  source  have 
strangely  denied  philosophy." — Nov.  Org.  Aphorism  xlvi. 

To  the  same  effect  Spinoza  wrote  : — "  But  we  are  not  to  overlook 
the  fact,  that  they  who  advocate  this  doctrine,  and  who  have  desired 
to  find  scope  for  the  display  of  their  ingenuity  in  assigning  causes, 
have  had  recourse  to  a  new  style  of  argument  to  help  them  in  their 
conclusions,  namely,  by  reduction  not  to  the  impossible  or  absurd, 
but  to  ignorance  or  the  unknown ;  a  procedure  which  shows  very 
plainly  that  there  was  no  other  course  open  to  them.  If,  for  instance, 
a  stone  or  tile  fell  from  a  house-top  on  the  head  of  any  one  and 
killed  him,  they  demonstrated  in  their  way  that  the  stone  or  tile  fell 
to  the  end  that  the  man  might  be  killed.  For  if  not  to  this  end,  and 
the  special  will  of  God,  how  should  so  many  concurring  circum- 
stances (and  very  many  circumstances  do  often  concur  in  such  a 
case)  have  led  to  the  event  ?  You  will  reply,  perhaps,  that  the 
event  happened  because  of  the  rough  wind,  the  loose  tile,  and  the 
presence  of  the  man  on  the  spot.  But  they  will  then  urge  :  wherefore 
blew  the  wind  so  rudely?  Why  wa»  the  man  at  the  particular 
instant  on  the  very  spot  on  which  the  tile  must  fall  ?  If  you 
answer,  that  the  wind  blew  because  of  the  neighbouring  tempest, 
whose  approach  was  indicated  by  the  heaving  of  the  sea  on  the  pre- 
ceding day,  though  the  weather  was  then  fine,  and  because  the  man 
had  been  invited,  and  was  on  his  way  to  the  house  of  a  friend,  they 
will  still  go  on  to  ask — for  in  such  a  case  there  is  no  end  of  asking — 
why  the  tempest  arose  at  a  distance  on  the  day  before,  and  why  the 
man  was  invited  at  that  particular  time, — the  cause  of  a  new  cause 
inquired  for  in  endless  sequence,  until  shelter  is  sought  in  what  in 


184  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

such  a  case  is  called  the  Will  of  God,  the  asylum  of  ignorance.  So 
also  when  they  regard  the  structure  of  the  human  body  they  are 
amazed ;  and  because  they  are  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  so  much 
art,  they  conclude  that  it  has  been  contrived  and  put  together  by  no 
mechanical,  but  by  some  divine  or  supernatural  art,  in  such  wise 
that  each  part  in  serving  its  own  purpose  is  not  injurious  to  another. 
And  thus  it  comes  that  he  who  inquires  into  the  true  causes  of 
miracles  and  prodigies,  and  who  admires  the  harmony  of  natural 
things  as  a  person  of  knowledge  and  understanding,  and  not  as  a 
simpleton,  is  everywhere  proclaimed  an  infidel  and  impious  per- 
son, and  is  so  regarded  by  those  whom  the  vulgar  bow  before  as 
the  interpreters  of  nature  and  the  Divine  decrees.  For  these  men 
know  that  with  ignorance  removed  wonder  ceases,  and  the  only 
means  they  have  of  enforcing  their  dicta  and  preserving  their 
authority  comes  to  an  end." 

3  (P-  15°)- — "After  the  actions  which  are  most  perfectly  voluntary 
have  been  rendered  so  by  one  set  of  associations,  they  may,  by 
another,  be  made  to  depend  upon  the  most  diminutive  sensations, 
ideas,  and  motions,  such  as  the  mind  scarce  regards,  or  is  conscious 
of ;  and  which,  therefore,  it  can  scarce  recollect  the  moment  after 
the  action  is  over.  Hence  it  follows  that  association  not  only  con- 
verts automatic  actions  into  voluntary,  but  voluntary  ones  into 
automatic.  For  these  actions,  of  which  the  mind  is  scarce  con- 
scious, and  which  follow  mechanically,  as  it  were,  some  precedent 
diminutive  sensation,  idea,  or  motion,  and  without  any  effort  of  the 
mind,  are  rather  to  be  ascribed  to  the  body  than  the  mind,  i.e.  are 
to  be  referred  to  the  head  of  automatic  motions.  I  shall  call  them 
automatic  motions  of  the  secondary  kind,  to  distinguish  them  both 
from  those  which  are  originally  automatic,  and  from  the  voluntary 
ones  ;  and  shall  now  give  a  few  instances  of  this  double  transmuta- 
tion of  motions,  viz.  of  automatic  into  voluntary,  and  of  voluntary 
into  automatic."  He  instances  the  manner  in  which  children  learn, 
and  especially  the  way  we  learn  to  speak,  to  play  on  the  harpsi- 
chord, &c.  "  The  doctrine  cf  vibrations  explains  all  the  original 
automatic  motions  ;  that  of  association  the  voluntary  and  secondarily 
automatic  ones." — HARTLEY'S  Theory  of  the  Hitman  Mind,  edited 
by  Priestley,  pp.  31,  37.  1795. 

Unzer  clearly  recognised  the  nature  of  the  acquired  automatic 
acts  : — "  And,  on  the  contrary,  we  seek  at  first  to  avoid  many  pains 
and  other  unpleasant  external  sensations  by  voluntary  movements, 
which  afterwards  become  purely  automatic,  as,  for  example,  shout- 
ing, writhing  and  retracting  when  in  pain  ;  the  quickened  walk  and 
the  drawing  up  the  legs  to  the  body  in  severe  cold ;  the  contraction 


HI.]  THE  SPINAL  CORD.  185 

of  the  eyelids  in  a  strong  light,  and  a  thousand  other  movements, 
the  objects  of  instincts,  formerly  volitional,  but  become  mechanical 
from  frequent  repetition.  Neither  can  we  infer  that  the  sentient 
actions  of  an  instinct,  which  in  us  or  in  another  animal  are  volitional 
movements,  must  have  been  such  formerly,  or  will  be  for  the  future, 
or  are  such  in  any  other  creature." — Op.  cit.,  p.  152. 

*  (/.  160). — "  Impressionum  sensoriarum  in  motorias  reflexio,  quos 
in  sensorio  communi  fit,  non  peragitur  juxta  solas  leges  physicas, 
ubi  angulus  reflexionis  zcqualis  est  angulo  incidentiae,  et  ubi,  quanta 
fit  actio,  tanta  etiam  sequitur  reactio  ;  sed  leges  peculiarea,  a  naturd 
in  pulpam  medullarem  sensorii  quasi  scriptas,  sequitur  ista  reflex  io 
quas  ex  solis  effect ilms  tantum  noscere,  neutiquam  vero  assequi 
nostro  ingenio  valemus.  Generalis  tamen  lex,  qua  commune  sen- 
sorium  imprcssiones  sensorias  in  motorias  rcllectit,  est  nostri  con- 
servatio  :  ita  ut  imprcssiones  externas  corpore  nostro  noscituras 
scquantur  certse  impressiones  motoriae,  motus  productune  eo  colli- 
niantes,  ut  monumentum  a  corpore  nostro  arceatur,  amoveaturque  ; 
et  vice  versa  impressiones  externas  seu  sensorias,  nobis  profuturas, 
sequantur  impressiones  internse  seu  motorioe,  motus  productune  eo 
tendentes,  ut  gratus  ille  status  ultra  conservetur." — PROCHASKA, 
op.  cit.  p.  88. 

Unzer  had  upheld  the  same  doctrine,  describing  the  effects  re- 
spectively as  connatural  and  contranatural  (naturlich  und  wider- 
naturlich),  according  as  they  are  in  accordance  with  the  well-being 
of  the  organism  or  not. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES,  OR  SENSORY 
GANGLIA  ;  SENSOR WM  COMMUNE. 

THE  diffefent  collections  of  grey  matter  in  the  medulla 
oblongata,  and  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  consist  chiefly 
of  the  nervous  centres  of  the  senses  with  corresponding 
centres  of  motor  reaction.  They  are  really  continuations 
of  the  grey  substance  of  the  spinal  cord,  from  which  they 
are  differentiated  by  more  specialised  functions.  Con- 
tinuing the  grey  substance  as  high  as  the  floor  of  the 
lateral  ventricles,  they  include  the  optic  thalami,  the 
corpora  striata,  the  corpora  quadrigemina,  and  the 
different  sensory  centres  that  are  placed  in  the  medulla 
oblongata,  the  tuber  annulare,  and  the  cerebral  pedun- 
cles. The  olfactory  bulbs,  which  lie  at  the  base  of  the 
anterior  cerebral  lobes,  must  also  be  included  in  the 
sensorium  commune.  Any  one  of  the  senses  may  be 
destroyed  by  injury  to  its  sensory  ganglion  as  surely  as 
by  actual  destruction  of  its  organ;  blindness  is  pro- 
duced by  injury  to  the  corpora  quadrigemina,  smell  is 
abolished  by  destruction  of  the  olfactory  bulbs.  These 
ganglionic  centres  are  thus  intermediate  between  the 
hemispherical  ganglia  above  and  the  spinal  centres 
below ;  to  those  they  are  subordinate,  to  these  they  are 
superordinate.  In  many  of  the  lower  animals,  as  already 
pointed  out,  the  brain  consists  of  nothing  more  than 
the  sensory  ganglia,  with  centres  of  motor  reaction ; 
there  are  no  superimposed  cerebral  ganglia. 


CHAP,  iv.]    SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  187 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of 
the  different  opinions  which  have  been  entertained  con- 
cerning the  exact  centres  of  the  different  senses ;  much  of 
what  is  said  on  these  difficult  questions  being  still  conjec- 
tural. It  has  for  some  time  been  supposed  that  the  seat 
of  common  sensation  is  in  the  thalami  optici,  because  it 
is  in  these  bodies  that  the  posterior  or  sensory  columns 
of  the  spinal  cord  seem  to  terminate  ;  and  that  the  cor- 
pora striata,  to  which  the  anterior  or  motor  columns  of 
the  cord  pass,  are  the  corresponding  motor  centres. 
Vulpian,  however,  has  brought  forward  strong  arguments 
in  favour  of  assigning  the  seat  of  common  sensation  to 
the  tuber  annulare.  After  the  removal  of  the  corpora 
striata,  the  tubercula  quadrigemina,  and  the  cerebellum 
— the  tuber  annulare  and  the  medulla  oblongata  being 
the  only  parts  of  the  encephalon  left — he  found  that  dogs 
and  rabbits  evinced,  by  violent  agitation  and  decided 
cries  of  suffering,  the  pain  felt  when  severely  pinched  or 
otherwise  irritated.  Moreover,  injuries  of  the  thalami 
optici,  pathological  or  experimental,  do  not  weaken 
sensibility,  but  do  often  produce  motor  paralysis.  He 
concludes  that  we  are  yet  in  entire  ignorance  of  the 
special  functions  both  of  the  thalami  optici  and  the  cor- 
pora striata.  Notwithstanding  this  opinion,  those  who 
have  examined  the  arguments  on  this  subject  will  pro- 
bably conclude  that  Vulpian's  theory  concerning  the 
tuber  annulare  has  blinded  him  to  the  import  of  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  the  thalami  optici  and  the  corpora 
striata  as  sensory  and  motor  centres  respectively.  It 
may  well  be  that  they  are  not  the  entire  centres,  and  that 
there  are  other  centres  of  sensibility  and  motion  in  the 
tuber  annulare  and  cerebral  peduncles ;  but  that  they  do 
minister  to  those  functions  it  is  hardly  possible  to  doubt. 
Luys  looks  upon  the  thalami  optici  as  a  kind  of  sen- 
sorium  commune  in  which  all  sensations  meet.  But  it  is 
not  by  any  means  certain  that  all  the  sensory  nerves  go 


188  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

to  them,  some  of  these  nerves  apparently  going  directly 
to  the  cortex  of  the  hemispheres,  while  it  is  tolerably 
certain  that  some  motor  nerves  are  connected  with  them. 
Wundt  makes  the  conjecture  that  they  are  centres  of 
reflex  functions  in  which  the  impressions  of  touch  are 
received  and  transformed  into  corresponding  movements. 
That  destruction  of  them  is  not  followed  by  loss  of 
sensibility  of  the  skin  may  be  owing  to  the  fact  that  some 
sensory  fibres  ascend  beneath  them  directly  to  the  hemi- 
spheres. He  looks  upon  the  chief  portion  of  the  cor- 
pora striata  as  a  motor  centre  through  which  the  impulses 
of  the  will  coming  downwards  from  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres act  upon  the  motor  nerves  ;  the  remaining  small 
portion  at  their  base  being  a  centre  in  which  the  central 
olfactory  fibres  and  certain  motor  fibres  terminate.* 
Meanwhile  all  that  concerns  us  here,  in  dealing  with  the 
cerebral  functions  from  a  psychological  point  of  view,  is 
to  have  some  general  term  to  embrace  and  designate  all 
the  centres  of  sensation ;  and  for  this  purpose  I  shall 
employ  the  term  scnsorium  commune,  using  it  as  a  generic 
term  to  denote  the  common  centres  of  sensation,  and 
not,  as  Vulpian  and  some  others  have  misused  it,  as 
a  special  term  to  designate  the  centres  of  common  sen- 
sation. In  a  similar  psychological  sense  I  shall  subse- 
quently use  the  terms  motorium  commune  and  intellcctorium 
commune. 

The  ganglionic  centres  of  the  sensorium  commune 
are  formed  of  numerous  nerve-cells,  which,  like  those  of 
the  spinal  cord,  are  in  connection  with  afferent  and 
efferent  nerves ;  the  afferent  nerves  in  this  case  coming 
mostly  from  the  organs  of  the  special  senses.  The  im- 
pressions which  the  afferent  nerves  bring  are,  therefore, 
special  in  kind,  as  also  are  the  grey  nuclei  to  which  they 
are  brought ;  a  progressive  differentiation  of  structure  and 
function  is  manifest ;  and  we  might  describe  the  sen- 
*  Grundzuge  der  Physiologischtn  Psychotogit,  p.  198. 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  189 

sorium  commune,  physiologically,  as  a  spinal  cord,  the 
afferent  nerves  of  which  are  the  nerves  of  the  special 
senses,  or  rather  of  the  various  kinds  of  sensibility.  For 
although  we  usually  distinguish  only  between  the  special 
senses  and  general  sensibility,  yet  there  are  really  diffe- 
rent kinds  of  the  latter,  each  perhaps  having  its  special 
nucleus  :  the  tactile  sense,  the  sense  of  temperature,  the 
muscular  sense,  differ  not  in  degree  only,  but  in  kind. 
An  exact  knowledge  of  the  anatomical  relations  of  the 
different  grey  nuclei  is  still  wanting,  notwithstanding  the 
patient  investigations  of  many  inquirers.  All  that  we 
are  certain  of  is,  that  the  fibres  of  the  nerves  are 
connected  with  the  cells,  as  may  be  most  easily  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  auditory  nerve  and  ganglion ;  that  mani- 
fold connections  exist  between  different  nuclei ;  and  that 
fibres  may  sometimes  be  traced  from  the  nucleus  of  a 
sensory  nerve  to  a  motor  nerve  upon  which  it  is  known 
to  exert  a  reflex  action.  The  trigeminus,  or  fifth  nerve, 
for  example,  passes  from  above  downwards  through  the 
medulla,  and  in  its  downward  course  forms  reflex  con- 
nections with  all  the  motor  nerves  of  the  medulla  as  it 
reaches  the  level  of  their  nuclei ;  in  this  way  the  facial, 
the  glossopharyngeal,  the  vagus,  the  spinal  accessory, 
and  the  hypoglossal  nerves  receive  communications  from 
it.  The  ganglionic  cells  of  different  nuclei  also  differ  in 
form  and  size ;  and  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk  held  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  at  every  spot  where  fibres  are  given  off 
for  the  performance  of  any  special  function,  there  fresh 
groups  of  ganglionic  cells  giving  origin  to  them  appear. 

We  justly  conclude,  then,  that,  as  we  should  d  priori 
expect,  special  ganglionic  centres  minister  to  special 
functions ;  that  the  central  cells  are,  as  it  were,  the  work- 
shops in  which,  on  the  occasion  of  a  suitable  stimulus, 
the  peculiar  current  necessary  for  the  performance  of  the 
specific  action  is  excited.  A  message  is  sent  up  to  them 
by  the  appointed  channels,  and  they  reply  by  sending 


igo  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

through  the  regular  motor  channels  the  particular  ener- 
gies which  it  is  their  function  to  supply.  Charged  with 
their  proper  force  during  the  assimilating  process  of 
nutrition,  it  exists  in  them  in  a  potential  or  latent  form  ; 
and  the  condition  of  unstable  vital  equilibrium  is  upset, 
the  force  being  then  discharged,  as  the  Leyden  jar  is, 
when  a  certain  stimulus  meets  with  a  sufficient  tension. 

The  natural  course  of  a  stimulus,  all  the  force  of  which 
is  not  reflected  upon  an  efferent  nerve  in  the  spinal 
centres,  is  upwards  to  the  sensorium  commune,  where  it 
becomes  the  occasion  of  a  new  order  of  phenomena ; 
the  law  of  extension  of  reflex  action  excited  by  a  spinal 
nerve  observably  being,  as  Pfliiger  has  shown,  from  below 
upwards  to  the  medulla.  Having  arrived  at  the  gan- 
glionic  cells  of  the  sensorium  commune,  the  stimulus  may 
be  at  once  reflected  through  the  motor  nuclei  on  a  motor 
nerve,  for  which  there  is  provision  in  a  direct  physical  path, 
and  involuntary  movements  may  thus  take  place  in  answer 
to  a  sensation,  just  as  involuntary  movements  take  place 
from  the  spinal  centres  without  any  sensation.  The  gan- 
glionic  cells  of  the  sensory  centres  are  unquestionably 
centres  of  independent  reaction,  and,  in  association  with 
their  proper  motor  nuclei,  give  rise  to  a  class  of  reflex 
movements  of  their  own.  When  a  man  lies  with  the  lower 
half  of  his  body  paralysed  in  consequence  of  injury  or 
disease  of  his  spinal  cord,  the  tickling  of  the  soles  of  his 
feet  will  sometimes  produce  reflex  movements  of  which 
he  is  unconscious.  When  a  man  lies  with  no  paralysis  of 
his  limbs,  but  with  a  perfectly  sound  spinal  cord,  the 
sudden  application  of  a  hot  iron  to  his  foot  or  leg  will 
give  rise  to  a  movement  quite  as  involuntary  as 
that  which  takes  place  in  the  paralysed  limb,  but,  in 
this  case,  in  answer  to  a  painful  sensation ;  the  reaction 
takes  place  in  the  sensory  ganglia,  is  accompanied  by 
feeling,  and  the  movement  is  sensori-motor.  Had  the 
hot  iron  been  applied  to  the  paralysed  limbs,  no  move- 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  191 

ment  would  have  followed,  because  the  path  of  the 
stimulus  was  cut  off  as  completely  as  the  current  of  the 
electric  stimulus  is  interrupted  when  the  telegraphic 
wires  are  cut  across. 

Experiments  on  animals  have  yielded  the  most  striking 
instances  of  complex  acts,  simultaneous  and  sequent,  in 
answer  to  sensory  stimuli.  Take  away  that  part  of  the 
brain  of  an  animal  which  lies  above  the  sensory  ganglia, 
namely,  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  and  it  is  still  capable 
of  a  variety  of  sensori-motor  movements,  though  it  does 
not  display  the  least  evidence  of  intelligence,  emotion,  or 
will  Flourens,  whose  experiments  have  been  repeated 
by  Longet,  Schiff,  and  others,  removed  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  of  a  pigeon,  and  observed  the  results.  It 
ceased  at  once  to  evince  intelligence  and  power  of  spon- 
taneous action,  and  remained  in  a  state  of  torpor,  as  if  it 
were  asleep.  But  if  thrown  into  the  air,  it  would  fly ;  if 
laid  on  its  back,  it  struggled  on  to  its  legs ;  the  pupil  of 
the  eye  contracted  to  light,  and  if  the  light  was  very 
bright,  the  eyelids  were  closed.  It  dressed  its  feathers 
when  they  were  ruffled,  and  sometimes  followed  with 
a  movement  of  its  head  the  movement  of  a  candle 
before  its  eyes;  and,  when  a  pistol  was  fired  off,  it 
opened  its  eyes,  stretched  its  neck,  raised  its  head, 
and  then  fell  back  into  its  former  torpid  attitude  until 
another  stimulus  was  applied.  To  each  sensory  stimulus 
it  answered  by  making  the  proper  movement  in  a  mechani- 
cal way  :  the  impressions  of  sense  reached  and  affected 
the  sensory  centres,  which  in  turn  instigated  the  proper 
reflex  or  automatic  acts.  There  was  neither  intellectual 
perception  nor  volitional  action  ;  and  it  would  have  died 
of  hunger  with  a  plateful  of  food  before  it,  though  it 
would  swallow  food  when  this  was  pushed  far  enough 
into  its  mouth  to  come  within  the  range  of  the  reflex 
movements  of  deglutition.  The  animal  was  brought  to 
the  level  of  the  invertebrata,  which  have  no  higher  nerve 


192  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

centres  than  sensory  ganglia,  no  centres  of  intelligence 
and  will,  and  which  execute  all  their  varied  and  active 
movements,  seeking  what  is  good  for  them,  avoiding 
what  is  hurtful  to  them,  and  providing  for  the  propagation 
of  their  kind,  through  sensory  and  associated  motor 
nuclei. 

Similar  experiments  have  been  made  on  other  animals 
with  similar  results.  Vulpian  made  a  complete  transverse 
section  of  the  nerve  centres  of  the  rat  immediately  above 
the  medulla  oblongata,  and  then  pinched  its  foot  severely : 
it  uttered  a  short,  sharp  cry  of  pain  which  presumably 
was  reflex  or  sensori-motor,  just  like  the  cry  which  an 
anencephalic  infant  may  make.  He  then  destroyed  the 
medulla  oblongata,  and  again  pinched  the  foot :  there 
were  reflex  movements,  but  there  was  no  cry.  In  another 
experiment  he  removed  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  the 
corpora  striata,  and  the  optic  thalami  of  a  rat,  when  it 
remained  perfectly  quiet;  but  immediately  a  sound  of 
spitting  was  made  in  imitation  of  that  which  a  cat  makes 
sometimes,  it  made  a  bound  away,  and  repeated  the 
jump  each  time  that  the  noise  was  made.*  The  rat,  by 
reason  probably  of  having  been  hunted  through  many 
generations,  is  very  fearful,  scampering  away  on  hearing 
the  least  unusual  sound  ;  and,  though  its  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres were  removed,  it  still  responded  to  the  sensory 
stimulus  to  the  auditory  ganglion  by  the  proper  automatic 
movements.  Longet  having  removed  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres of  young  cats  and  dogs,  introduced  into  their 
mouths  a  concentrated  bitter  decoction;  he  observed 
that  they  performed  active  movements  of  mastication, 
and  made  grimaces  with  their  lips  as  if  they  sought  to 
get  rid  of  a  disagreeable  taste  ;  they  made,  in  fact,  the 
same  movements  as  he  observed  were  made  by  an 
uninjured  animal  of  the  same  kind  when  it  was  made  to 
swallow  a  similar  bitter  decoction. 

*  VULPIAN,  0/nV.,  p.  5^8. 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  193 

Many  more  experiments  of  a  like  kind  might  be 
adduced,  but  it  will  suffice  to  mention  the  recent 
experiments  of  Goltz  upon  frogs.  When  a  frog,  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  of  which  have  been  removed,  is 
placed  on  the  palm  of  the  hand  held  horizontally,  it 
remains  there  crouched  quietly ;  if  the  hand  be  now 
gently  turned,  it  will  move  first  one  paw  and  then  the 
other,  so  as  gradually  to  get  upon  the  upper  border  of 
the  hand  as  this  rises,  and  to  prevent  itself  from  falling  ; 
and  if  the  turning  be  slowly  continued,  it  finally  gets 
carefully  on  to  the  back  of  the  hand,  when  this  is  upper- 
most, and  there  sits  quietly  until  the  hand  is  gently 
turned  backwards  again,  when  it  goes  through  the  reverse 
operations.  To  the  sensory  stimuli  from  the  muscular 
sense  it  responds  by  the  adapted  automatic  movements, 
as  exactly  as  if  it  still  possessed  its  nerve  centres  of 
intelligence  and  will.  In  fact,  the  same  agency  is  put  in 
motion  by  the  sensory  stimulus  to  accomplish  the  proper 
movements  as  would  have  been  made  use  of  had  the 
stimulus  come  from  the  will  of  the  animal ;  and  while 
the  sensory  stimulus  can  excite  the  movements  without 
the  will,  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  the  will  to 
accomplish  them  without  the  automatic  agency  of  the 
lower  nerve  centres. 

Another  interesting  experiment  is  the  croaking  ex- 
periment (Quakversuch).  If  the  frog  which  has  been 
deprived  of  its  cerebral  hemispheres  be  gently  stroked 
between  the  shoulders  or  along  the  flanks,  it  will  croak 
once  at  each  stroke  with  machine-like  regularity;  dif- 
fering in  this  respect  from  an  unmutilated  frog,  which 
either  will  not  croak  at  all,  or  will  croak  several  times, 
its  cerebral  hemispheres  enabling  it  either  to  control  or 
to  strengthen  the  reflex  act.  But  even  frogs  which  do 
not  croak  so  long  as  they  possess  their  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres will  croak  readily  and  regularly  when  these  have 
been  removed.  However,  none  of  them  so  mutilated  will 


194  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

croak  their  gratification  in  this  way  if  the  stimulus  be 
painful  instead  of  pleasant.  If  touched  or  stroked  with 
a  sharp  instrument,  or  if  electrical  or  chemical  irritation 
be  applied  to  the  skin  of  the  back,  they  execute  defen- 
sive movements  and  may  make  a  cry  of  pain,  but  will 
not  make  the  croak  of  contentment 

The  movements  in  answer  to  impressions  on  the  senses 
are,  like  the  simplest  reflex  movements,  primary  and 
secondary  automatic.  Examples  of  primary  automatic 
movements  are  to  be  found  in  the  contraction  of  the 
pupils  and  the  involuntary  closure  of  the  eyelids  when 
a  strong  light  falls  upon  the  eye ;  in  the  distortion  of  the 
face  in  consequence  of  a  sour  taste  ;  in  the  quick  with- 
drawal of  the  hand  when  it  is  touched  by  something  hot ; 
in  the  cry  which  excessive  pain  calls  forth ;  in  the  motions 
of  sucking  which  take  place  when  the  nipple  is  put 
between  the  infant's  lips;  in  coughing  and  sneezing; 
and  in  yawning  on  seeing  some  one  else  yawn.  Illus- 
trations of  acquired  or  secondary  movements  of  this  class 
are  seen  in  the  adaptation  of  the  walk  to  the  music  of  a 
military  band ;  in  the  maintenance  of  the  balance  and 
attitude  of  the  body,  through  combined  impressions  on 
sight  and  touch,  during  walking,  running,  leaping,  dancing; 
in  the  articulation  of  words  on  seeing  their  appropriate 
signs,  or  hearing  their  sounds ;  in  playing  from  notes  on 
a  musical  instrument  when  the  mind  is  occupied ;  and  in 
many  other  of  the  common  actions  of  life  of  which  we  are 
not  conscious  at  the  time,  but  of  the  necessity  of  which, 
were  there  no  power  of  performing  them  automatically, 
we  should  soon  become  actively  conscious  *  (').  We  little 

*  Mr,  James  Mill  clearly  recognised  this  class  of  movements,  as 
Hartley  had  done  before  him.  "  Innumerable  facts  are  capable  of 
being  adduced  to  prove  that  sensation  is  a  cause  of  muscular  action," 
p.  258.  After  instancing,  as  examples,  sneezing,  coughing,  the  con- 
traction of  the  pupils,  and  the  movements  of  the  eyelids,  he  says  : 
"  We  seem  authorised,  therefore,  by  the  fullest  evidence,  to  assume 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  195 

think,  indeed,  how  much  we  owe  to  the  acquired  auto- 
matic functions  of  the  nerve  centres  of  the  different 
senses.  In  the  expression  of  thought  by  speech,  it  is 
not  certain  whether  the  idea  acts  directly  upon  the  motor 
ganglia ;  it  may  be  that  it  acts  first  upon  the  auditory 

that  sensation  is  the  mental  cause,  whatever  the  physical  links,  of  a 
great  proportion  of  the  muscular  contractions  of  our  frame  ;  and 
that  among  those  so  produced  are  found  some  of  the  most  con- 
stant, the  most  remarkable,  and  the  most  important  of  that  great 
class  of  corporeal  phenomena." — Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind, 
p.  265. 

Their  nature  was  also  distinctly  pointed  out  by  Unzer,  who  cited 
instances,  e.g.,  many  movements  made  during  sleep,  especially  by 
somnambulists,  "But  f^f  principal  pcint  is,  that  on  this  depends 
the  secret  of  the  instincts  in  those  animals  which  probably  do  not  feel 
the  sensational  stimuli  of  the  instincts."  Unzer's  work  was  pub- 
lished in  1771.  Op.  cit.t  p.  242. 

Hartley's  Observations  on  Man  were  published  in  1 749 ;  and  they 
are  certainly  surprising  when  we  consider  how  little  was  known  at 
that  time  of  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  the  nervous  system. 
He  supposed  that  when  external  objects  affected  the  sensory  nerves, 
they  excited  vibrations  in  the  small  particles  of  the  medullary  sub- 
stance, which  were  propagated  to  the  brain  ;  "  as  soon  as  the 
vibrations  enter  the  brain,  they  begin  to  be  propagated  freely 
every  way  over  the  medullary  substance."  ....  "The  subtle 
motions  excited  in  the  sensory  nerves  and  medullary  substance  of 
the  brain  during  sensation,  and  intelligence,  must,  of  whatever  kind 
they  be,  pass  into  the  motory  nerves,  and  when  they  are  arrived 
there,  it  is  probable  that  they  cause  the  contraction  of  the  muscles. " 
.'•'.'  .  .  "The  same  motion  that  occasions  sensation  and  intel- 
lectual perception  passes  through  the  seats  of  these  into  the 
motory  nerves,  in  order  to  excite  there  the  automatic  and  volun- 
tary motions."  As  examples  of  this  reflex  action  he  instances 
sneezing,  swallowing,  coughing,  hiccoughing,  vomiting,  and  ex- 
pelling the  excretions,  and  "general  convulsions  from  acidities, 
and  other  irritations  in  the  bowels."  He  even  extends  this  doctrine 
of  reflex  action  to  the  secretory  and  excretory  vessels  of  the  glands, 
which  "  must  be  constantly  agitated  with  a  like  motion  from  the 
same  causes,  performing  their  ordinary  secretions  and  excretions 
thereby."  Here  then  we  have  as  clear  an  anticipation  as  could  be 
desired  of  the  doctrine  of  reflex  action,  and  of  its  application  to  all 
nerve-centres. 


196  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ganglia  and  so  excites  the  sensation  of  the  sound  of  the 
proper  word,  or  what  would  be  the  sensation  were  we 
actively  conscious  of  it,  and  that  this  thereupon  acts 
upon  the  motor  ganglia  and  gives  rise  to  the  appropriate 
reflex  movements  of  speech.  It  may  be  observed  in 
regard  to  the  automatic  acts  that,  when  completely 
organised,  they  are  more  perfectly  performed  the  less  we 
are  conscious  of  them,  that  is,  the  more  entirely  reflex  they 
are ;  wherefore  it  is  that  somnambulists  are  able  to  walk 
and  run  safely  where  they  would  not  dare  to  walk  or  run 
if  they  were  wide  awake. 

The  instinctive  actions  of  animals  fall  under  the  cate- 
gory of  consensual  acts :  without  the  intervention  of 
any  conception,  the  sensation  at  once  excites  the  ap- 
propriate movement,  and  the  animal  is  almost  or  quite 
as  skilful  on  its  first  trial  as  it  is  after  a  life  experi- 
ence. It  is  true  that  the  instinctive  life  is  extremely 
limited  in  man,  but  sensori-motor  action  plays  a  large 
part  in  such  manifestations  of  it  as  are  witnessed ; 
in  the  taking  of  food  the  movements  of  mastication  and 
deglutition,  like  the  earlier  ones  of  sucking,  are  in  answer 
to  sensational  stimuli,  as  also  are  some  of  the  co-ordinated 
movements  necessary  to  the  gratification  of  the  sexual 
instinct.  The  adjustment  of  the  human  eye  to  distances, 
which  takes  place  with  such  marvellous  quickness  and 
accuracy,  is  effected,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  by 
a  change  in  the  convexity  of  the  lens  and  perhaps  of  the 
cornea,  and  by  an  alteration  in  the  direction  of  the  axes  of 
the  eyes.  It  is  not  a  voluntary,  not  even  a  conscious  act, 
but  a  consensual  act  in  respondence  to  a  visual  sensation, 
and  it  is  well  suited  to  convey  a  notion  of  what  an  in- 
stinctive act  in  an  animal  is. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  the  intuitions  of  the  distance  and 
form  of  objects,  which  are  acquired  by  man,  are  innate 
in  many  of  the  lower  animals.  The  young  swallow  can 
apparently  seize  its  small  prey  with  as  exact  a  skill  on 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  197 

the  first  occasion  as  the  old  one  can  after  a  life-experience ; 
and  there  is  a  certain  Indian  fish  which  brings  down  the 
insects  on  which  it  feeds  by  shooting  a  drop  of  water  at 
them  from  its  snout  as  they  move  above  the  surface  of 
the  water,  and  which  is  said  seldom  to  miss  its  aim. 
When  we  consider  that  the  refraction  of  the  rays  of  light 
on  entering  the  water  will  cause  the  insect  to  appear  at  a 
different  spot  in  the  air  from  that  at  which  it  really  is,  and 
that  the  difference  between  the  real  and  apparent  position 
will  vary  according  as  the  rays  of  light  enter  the  water 
more  or  less  obliquely,  we  shall  wonder  the  more  at  the 
remarkable  intuition  displayed.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
however,  that  the  act  is  entirely  automatic  ;  innate  func- 
tions of  the  kind  are  limitations  which  compel  and  con- 
fine the  animal  to  fixed  routes  of  machine-like  action ; 
and  the  absence  of  such  limitation  in  man's  original 
nature  marks  his  higher  freedom.  Still  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  how  much  even  he  is  indebted  to  original 
endowment  in  this  very  matter  of  estimating  distance. 
For  what  is  the  immediate  cause  that  determines  the 
muscular  adjustment  of  the  eye  to  distance  ?  The  act  is 
consensual,  or,  using  the  vaguer  term,  instinctive,  in  re- 
spondence  to  a  visual  sensation  or  picture — an  act  of 
which  there  is  no  direct  consciousness,  and  over  which 
the  will  has  no  direct  control  Though  the  process  is 
confused  and  uncertain  at  first,  unlike  in  that  regard 
the  process  in  the  lower  animals,  yet  it  is  not  long  before 
the  proper  muscular  adaptations  are  acquired  and  definite 
motor  intuitions  organised.  Plainly,  then,  very  much  is 
due  to  the  pre-arranged  constitution  of  the  nervous  cen- 
tres even  in  man. 

We  are  under  no  little  difficulty  when  we  try  to  realise 
how  far  consciousness  accompanies  many  so-called  sen- 
sations and  their  respondent  movements ;  the  question 
being  whether  consciousness  is  an  essential  element  in 
the  action,  not  of  a  sensation  because  the  word  implies 
10 


198  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

consciousness,  but  of  a  sensational  stimulus  upon  the 
sensory  ganglion,  the  passage  of  the  resulting  molecular 
motion  to  the  associated  motor  nucleus,  and  its  ultimate 
issue  in  the  proper  movement.  But  that,  it  may  be 
objected,  is  nothing  else  than  a  question  whether  con- 
sciousness is  a  necessary  part  of  sensation ;  a  question 
which  can  hardly  be  seriously  asked.  Not  quite  so,  as 
will  be  evident  if  we  do  not  suffer  ourselves  to  be  satis- 
fied with  a  somewhat  vague  term,  but  resolve  to  appre- 
hend the  facts  as  distinctly  as  possible. 

When  an  impression  on  sense  has  affected  the  sensory 
ganglion,  the  resulting  disturbance  may  be  discharged  in 
two  ways  :  it  may  either  travel  upwards  to  the  cerebral 
centres,  where  it  is  perceived,  and  is  without  doubt  then  a 
conscious  state ;  or  it  may  pass  along  the  sensori-motor  arc 
into  some  movement,  when  it  is  not  so  certain  that  it  is  a 
conscious  process.  Certain  it  is  that  our  natural  bias  is 
to  attribute  too  much  or  too  distinct  consciousness  to  a 
sensori-motor  act,  because  we  are  apt  to  deduce  from  our 
experience  of  self-consciousness.  In  our  mental  func- 
tions the  action  of  the  cerebral  centres  and  of  the  sensory 
centres  are  so  intimately  intermingled  that  we  are  unable 
to  separate  them  by  self-conscious  analysis,  and  so  run 
the  unavoidable  risk  of  assigning  to  the  latter,  when  they 
act  independently,  qualities  which  may  be  derived  from 
the  former.  Could  we  get  inside  the  nervous  system  of 
the  insect  which  has  no  cerebral  hemispheres,  or  of  an 
infant  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  before  its  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres begin  their  functions,  and  observe  directly  what 
part,  if  any,  consciousness  plays  in  sensori-motor  action, 
it  would  be  a  vast  help  in  our  analysis.  Inasmuch  as  we 
cannot  obtain  that  insight,  the  right  method  is,  first,  to 
observe  carefully  the  simplest  instances,  making  no 
further  inferences  than  they  warrant,  before  we  go  on 
to  study  the  more  complex  phenomena  of  intermixed 
sensation  and  perception  in  man;  and,  secondly,  to 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  199 

make  use  of  those  in  the  interpretation  of  these,  rather 
than  to  apply  these  to  the  interpretation  of  those.* 

Bearing  in  mind  that  the  sensory  ganglia  are  a  continu- 
ation of  the  grey  tract  of  the  spinal  cord,  differentiated 
by  their  connections  with  the  nerves  of  the  special  senses, 
I  would  call  to  mind  what  was  said  in  the  foregoing 
chapter  concerning  the  supposed  consciousness  of  the 
spinal  cord.  The  conclusion  reached  was  that  it  was 
capable  of  responding  automatically  to  stimuli  by  co-or- 
dinate or  adaptive  movements,  without  possessing  con- 
sciousness in  any  definite  sense  of  the  word.  We  may 
fairly  suppose  it  possible  then  that  the  sensory  ganglia, 
with  their  higher  functional  endowments,  are  capable  of 
more  complex  automatic  acts  in  answer  to  their  special 
stimuli  without  the  intervention  of  consciousness ;  the 
more  so  as  there  is  no  line  of  demarcation  between  sen- 
sori-motor  and  reflex  acts.  Let  us  take  a  simple  instance 
— the  contraction  of  the  pupils  to  light :  certain  undula- 
tions strike  upon  the  retina,  are  transmitted  to  the  optic 
ganglia,  reflected  thence  upon  a  motor  nucleus,  and  the 
circular  muscular  fibres  of  the  iris  presently  contract, 
whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  whether  we  know  it  or  not ; 
if  the  light  be  brighter,  contraction  of  the  eyelids  follows. 
We  are  not  in  truth  conscious  of  the  contraction  of  the 
pupils  unless  we  watch  it  in  a  glass.  The  efferent  part 
of  the  process  is  clearly  unconscious,  whatever  be  thought 
of  the  afferent  part.  But  are  we  conscious  of  the 

*  In  adopting  this  canon  one  is  liable  to  be  met  with  the  reproach 
from  the  metaphysician,  that  it  is  a  setting  to  work  to  deduce  the 
greater  from  the  less  and  to  subordinate  the  higher  to  the  lower. 
But  it  is  an  empty  reproach  :  we  believe  the  greater  to  include  the 
less,  the  higher  to  rest  on  the  lower,  and  think  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  less  will  help  to  a  knowledge  of  the  greater,  of  the  lower  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  higher,  without  supposing  that  the  greater  or 
higher  does  not  contain  something  which  will  not  be  so  explained. 
To  apply  this  something  to  the  less  or  lower  is,  we  say,  an  entirely 
false  method. 


JOG  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

sensational  stimulus  in  this  instance ;  in  other  words,  have 
we  a  conscious  sensation  of  light  ?  I  think  not,  unless  the 
sensation  becomes  perception,  in  which  case  it  has  passed 
beyond  the  sphere  of  sensory  function  to  the  higher  sphere 
of  the  cerebral  centres.  The  pupils  of  a  person  in  apo- 
plexy who  is  unconscious  of  sight  or  sound  will  contract, 
just  as  those  of  the  pigeon  deprived  of  its  hemispheres 
will,  when  a  strong  light  is  thrown  upon  them.  The  pure 
sensation  is  not  strictly  a  conscious  state ;  we  may  rightly 
speak  of  an  organic  sentience  and  an  ensuing  movement 
that  are  not  conscious. 

This  is  a  conclusion  which  may  certainly  be  disputed, 
and  the  more  easily  because  of  the  want  of  anything 
like  a  precise  definition  of  consciousness.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  before  mentioned  experiments  on  the  frog 
show  plainly  that  it  feels,  that  is,  consciously  feels, 
the  stimulus;  for  it  utters  the  cry  of  pain  when  it  is 
scratched,  the  croak  of  gratification  when  it  is  stroked 
gently.  How  should  the  frog  respond  to  the  gratification 
or  the  pain  unless  it  felt  it?  But  we  go  beyond  the 
facts  when  we  assume  that  it  does  respond  to  the  gratifi- 
cation or  the  pain  ;  what  we  know  is,  that  it  responds  to 
the  stimulus,  of  which  consciousness  may  be  an  incidental 
coeffect  and  by  no  means  an  essential  accompaniment ; 
that  the  croak  and  the  cry  are  made  in  answer  to  their 
respective  stimuli.  The  surprise  would  be  if  they  were 
not,  the  constitution  of  the  frog  being  what  it  is,  so  long 
as  the  properties  of  its  tissues  are  maintained  by  the  due 
circulation  of  blood  in  them.  Let  us  take  the  other  ex- 
periment in  which  the  frog  cleverly  balances  itself  on  the 
hand,  as  this  is  slowly  turned,  so  as  to  prevent  itself  from 
falling  off  Here  it  makes  a  series  of  complex  move- 
ments in  answer  to  a  succession  of  stimuli  from  its  mus- 
cular sense  that  are  occasioned  by  its  changing  relations 
to  the  hand  as  this  is  turned.  Is  it  conscious  of  these 
stimuli  ?  If  we  refer  to  our  own  experience  of  similar 


iv.J  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  201 

stimuli  operating  in  the  maintenance  of  the  attitude  of 
the  body  and  in  the  various  adapted  movements  which 
we  make  for  the  accomplishment  of  special  acts,  it  would 
appear  that  we  are  not  conscious  of  them,  so  far  as  we 
know,  and  that  those  who  affirm  that  we  are  so  do  really 
assume  a  consciousness  which  is  not  conscious.  They,  in 
fact,  beg  the  entire  question  by  the  tacit  assumption  that 
we  could  not  perform  the  adapted  movements  unless  we 
were,  without  knowing  it,  conscious  of  the  sensory 
stimuli  of  the  muscular  sense.  So  much  concerning 
that  which  we  learn  from  observation  of  simple 
instances. 

Let  us  now  go  on  to  consider  a  more  complex  instance. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  fly-catcher  will,  immediately  it 
is  out  of  the  egg,  catch  an  insect  with  its  beak.  In  like 
manner  a  chicken,  very  soon  after  its  escape  from  the 
egg,  pecks  at  a  grain  and  takes  good  aim ;  that  is  to  say, 
in  answer  to  a  visual  sensation  it  adapts  a  set  of  move- 
ments with  the  most  exact  appreciation  of  the  proper 
muscles  to  be  put  in  action  and  of  the  degree  of  contrac- 
tion required  in  each  muscle — with  the  nicest  accuracy  of 
judgment — to  the  accomplishment  of  a  difficult  feat.  The 
lives  of  most  chickens  would  be  far  too  short  to  enable 
them  to  learn  this  skilful  art,  were  they  under  the  neces- 
sity of  learning  it  Mr.  Spalding  has  made  some  experi- 
ments on  chickens  which  prove  that  they  do  not  need  to 
be  taught  As  soon  as  they  emerged  from  the  egg  he 
put  hoods  over  their  heads  so  that  they  could  not  see,  and 
kept  them  in  this  state  of  darkness  for  two  or  three  days 
until  they  could  run  about ;  when  he  uncovered  their 
eyes  they  appeared  stunned  or  dazed  for  a  minute  or 
so,  owing  no  doubt  to  the  diffused  molecular  action 
through  their  nervous  centres  produced  by  the  sudden 
impression  of  the  undulations  of  light ;  but  immediately 
upon  their  recover)-  from  this  state,  when  the  molecular 
action  was  limited  to  the  proper  tracks,  they  followed 


202  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  movements  of  insects  and  pecked  at  them  with 
precise  aim.  In  like  manner,  they  made  their  way  straight 
towards  a  box  in  which  a  hen  with  chicks  was  shut  up, 
when  they  heard  her  chuck,  struggling  through  grass  and 
over  rough  ground,  though  hardly  able  to  stand  steadily 
on  their  legs.  Even  chickens  that  were  still  hooded  tried 
in  this  way  to  get  to  the  hen  when  they  heard  her  chuck. 
He  observed  also  that  a  young  turkey  only  ten  days  old, 
which  had  never  seen  a  hawk,  was  so  frightened  by  the 
note  of  a  hawk  which  was  concealed  in  a  cupboard, 
that  it  fled  away  from  the  cupboard  in  the  greatest 
terror. 

It  will  hardly  be  affirmed  in  these  instances  of  so-called 
instinct  that  there  is  a  distinct  consciousness  of  the  nature 
of  the  stimulus  and  of  the  ensuing  actions ;  the  simple 
sensory  impression — in  one  case,  of  sight,  in  the  other 
case,  of  sound — is  the  spring  which  puts  in  motion  auto- 
matically the  proper  muscles.*  This  it  does  by  a  physical 
necessity,  not  by  the  will,  nor  perhaps  with  the  conscious- 
ness, of  the  chicken.  In  like  manner,  when  ducklings 
are  hatched  by  a  hen,  they  make  their  way  into  water  as 
soon  as  they  see  it ;  the  impression  on  the  sense  of  sight 
determines  their  action,  notwithstanding  the  consternation 
of  the  hen,  and  notwithstanding  that  they  cannot  have 
fore-knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  water  or  prevision 
of  what  will  happen  to  them  when  they  get  into  it; 
and  when  they  get  into  the  water,  the  impression 
which  it  makes  upon  their  bodies  sets  going  the  proper 
movements  of  swimming,  just  as  happens  when  the  frog 

*  The  metaphysical  psychologists,  who  make  most  of  conscious- 
ness, do  not  seemingly  attribute  consciousness  to  instinct  in  man. 
Most  strange,  from  their  point  of  view  :  but  so  it  is  !  "  Man  is 
indeed  furnished  with  instincts,  so  far  as  he  needs  them,  to  impel 
and  direct  his  movements,  before  his  intellect  is  developed,  or  with 
respect  to  objects  of  which  the  intellect  take  no  cognizance.  Instinct 
is  a  blind,  unconscious  force  ;  it  is  not  knowledge." — The  Human 
Intellect.  By  Noah  Porter,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  p.  176. 


»v.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  203 

that  has  been  deprived  of  its  hemispheres  is  put  into 
water.  On  the  other  hand,  chickens  that  have  been 
hatched  by  a  duck  are  not  moved  by  her  example  to 
follow  her  into  the  water :  she  cannot  educate  them  in 
the  way  she  would  have  them  go.  It  would  be  strange 
if  ducklings  and  chickens  did  not  thus  act,  in  relation  to 
water,  in  conformity  with  their  nature ;  their  differences 
of  constitution  representing,  in  the  one  case,  a  mechanism 
which  has  been  organised  through  past  ages  in  that  special 
adaptation  to  water  which  enables  them  to  swim  in  it ; 
and,  in  the  other  case,  a  mechanism  which  has  not  been 
organised  in  relation  to  it  at  all.  Could  we  penetrate  the 
intimate  construction,  and  disclose  the  secret  springs  of 
action,  of  the  organic  mechanism,  we  should  without 
doubt  perceive  the  result  to  be  as  clearly  physical  as  are 
the  successive  motions  of  the  piston  and  wheels  of  a 
steam-engine  when  the  valve  is  opened  which  lets  in  the 
steam  to  act  upon  the  piston.  That  the  duckling  swims 
and  the  chicken  drowns  in  water  is  no  more  surprising 
than  that  wood  floats  and  iron  sinks  in  water.  If  we 
clearly  realize  this  conception  of  an  organic  machine 
which  has,  through  past  ages  of  function,  been  now 
definitely  organised  to  respond  by  physical  necessity  in 
special  ways  to  special  sensory  stimuli,  it  will  appear 
that  consciousness,  whether  it  exists  or  not,  is  not  required 
for  its  operations — is,  if  it  occurs,  an  incident  rather  than 
of  the  essence  of  the  function. 

Having  once  got  this  conception  fixed  in  the  mind, 
we  shall  be  the  better  fitted  to  estimate  the  phe- 
nomena of  sensori-motor  or  instinctive  action,  without 
bias  from  our  self-conscious  experience.  It  is  easier 
to  believe  that  the  chicken  is  unconscious  of  the  auto- 
matic movements  which  it  makes  when  it  pecks  at  the 
grain,  than  to  admit  that  it  is  unconscious  of  the  sen- 
sory stimulus  when  it  sees  the  grain.  But  why  should 
we  endow  the  special  susceptibility  or  reaction  of  the 


204  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND. 

sensory  ganglion  to  the  external  stimulus  with  a  quality 
of  consciousness  which  it  is  not  thought  necessary  to 
attribute  to  the  special  susceptibility  or  reaction  which  the 
associated  motor  nucleus  shows  to  the  stimulus  from  the 
sensory  ganglion  ?  Here,  in  fact,  we  are  involved  in  the 
confusion  which  comes  of  the  want  of  an  exact  agree- 
ment as  to  what  is  meant  by  consciousness ;  we  suffer 
from  the  want  of  an  exact  definition  in  which  men  agree. 
When  pressed  hard  by  their  opponents,  those  who  uphold 
a  diffusion  of  consciousness  throughout  the  nervous  sys- 
tem will  say  that  although  the  chicken  may  not  be  con- 
scious of  grain  or  of  insect,  yet  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  its  sensory  ganglion  is  not  conscious  of  the  stimulus 
which  the  grain  or  insect  is  to  it  But  what  is  the  mean- 
ing of  this  consciousness  which  is  not  the  consciousness 
of  the  individual,  but  which  is,  nevertheless,  attributed 
to  the  separate  organs  or  parts  of  the  body?  Is  it 
consciousness  at  all?  Let  the  metaphysical  psycholo- 
gists answer  to  that  question,  who  define  consciousness 
as  the  knowledge  which  the  mind  of  the  individual 
has  of  its  own  acts  and  states.  It  is  surely  the  fact  that 
/  am  conscious  only  as  an  individual,  as  an  ego,  by  the 
power  which  I  have  of  introspective  observation  of  my- 
self:  I  cannot  know  anything  subjectively  of  an  alleged 
consciousness  of  separate  organs  or  parts  of  my  body 
which  is  not  part  of  my  consciousness  as  an  ego,  and 
assuredly  I  cannot  know  it  objectively;  it  is  therefore 
an  assumption,  which  may  be  true  or  not,  but  for 
which  we  have  no  warrant,  to  ascribe  consciousness  to 
them. 

If  it  be  said  that  although  /  am  not  conscious  of  a  sen- 
sational stimulus  my  sensory  ganglion  is,  and  that  its  simple 
consciousness  does,  unconsciously  to  me,  affect  the  com- 
plex consciousness  which  I,  as  an  ego,  have,  its  special 
waves  being  merged  and  lost  in  the  more  complex  waves 
of  general  consciousness,  I  cannot  deny  the  possible 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  205 

influence ;  but  at  the  same  time  cannot  but  think  that  to 
call  it  consciousness  is  to  take  a  license  of  assumption 
which  is  unwarrantable,  and  to  render  discussion  futile ; 
it  is  to  introduce  a  consciousness  which  defies  subjective 
analysis  and  objective  inquiry,  and  to  rob  the  word  of  a 
definite  meaning.  Moreover,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  it  is  an  unnecessary  assumption,  once  we  have 
realised  the  purely  automatic  nature  of  the  complex 
sensori-motor  acts  which  excite  our  wonder. 

However,  if  it  be  still  insisted  that  the  sensory 
ganglion  is  always  conscious,  even  when  the  indi- 
vidual to  whom  it  belongs  is  not,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  ascribe  the  quality,  as  some  logically  do,  to  the 
spinal  cord  also,  and,  in  those  creatures  which,  like 
the  hydra,  have  no  nervous  system,  to  the  sensitive  ele- 
ments of  their  substance ;  and  I  know  not  how,  having 
got  so  far,  we  can  forbear  ascribing  consciousness  to  the 
structure  of  the  sensitive  plant,  to  chemical  elements 
which  display  affinities  for  one  another,  and  to  the  aspir- 
ing ascent  of  water  in  a  capillary  tube.  It  will  only  be 
going  back  on  the  road  to  the  old  philosophy  which  found 
the  explanation  of  natural  phenomena  in  sympathies  and 
antipathies,  in  loves  and  in  hates.  If  anyone  chooses  to 
affirm  that  the  sun,  by  an  act  of  will  attracts  the  earth 
and  keeps  it  in  its  orbit,  in  spite  of  the  voluntary  resist- 
ance which  the  earth,  anxious  to  get  away  into  space, 
opposes  to  the  compulsion,  I  cannot  argue  with  him  ;  he 
silences  me  effectually,  though  he  does  not  convince  me. 
Certainly  it  behoves  those  who  discover  the  diffused  ele- 
ments of  a  rudimentary  consciousness  in  the  movements 
of  the  sensitive  plant  and  of  the  hydra,  if  not  in  the 
affinities  of  chemical  elements,  which  becomes  more 
specialised  as  we  ascend  to  more  highly  vital  structures, 
to  take  scrupulous  heed  to  discriminate  plainly  between 
these  low  modes  of  consciousness,  the  existence  of  which 
they  infer  objectively,  and  that  consciousness  which  alone 


206  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

we  know  directly ;  and  to  refrain  from  tacitly  investing 
the  former  with  all  the  qualities  of  the  latter. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  foregoing  remarks 
have  had  reference  to  the  primordial  sensation  of  the 
chicken,  while  it  was  yet  pure  sensation,  unmixed  with 
perception.  But  in  an  animal  with  cerebral  hemispheres 
this  period  of  pure  sensation  must  be  brief  and  transitory. 
The  moment  the  chicken  has  made  the  proper  movements 
and  picked  up  the  grain,  it  has  enlarged  its  experience  of 
sensory  stimuli  by  the  coalescence  with  them  of  those 
which  it  has  received  from  the  muscular  sense  during 
the  movements ;  and  it  is  in  the  association  of  these  ex- 
periences of  the  muscular  sense  with  the  visual  sensation 
of  the  grain,  that  the  perception  of  the  latter  as  an  external 
object  begins  to  dawn.  These  associated  sensations, 
retinal  and  muscular,  when  they  have  been  agglutinated, 
constitute  the  perception. 

The  nearest  thing  in  human  experience  with  which  we 
can  compare  the  pure  sensation,  free  from  admixture  of 
perception,  is  probably  the  so-called  organic  sense  through 
which  the  brain  is  affected  by  the  special  stimuli  of  the 
several  internal  organs.  Each  organ  is  in  intimate  re- 
lation with  the  brain  through  internuncial  nerve  fibres, 
having,  so  to  speak,  a  special  correspondence  with 
it ;  and  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  each 
exerts  its  constant  and  specific  influence  upon  it,  and, 
through  it,  upon  the  constitution  and  function  of  mind. 
This  intimate  and  essential  sympathy  is  exhibited  and 
observed  most  plainly  in  the  great  mental  revolution 
which  is  produced  by  the  development  of  the  functions 
of  the  reproductive  organs  at  puberty.  Coming  into 
action  abruptly  at  a  certain  period  of  life,  they  display 
their  specific  effects  in  a  decided  and  somewhat  abrupt 
manner ;  the  effects  being  necessarily  less  evident  with 
the  specific  sympathies  of  other  organs  which  come  into 
functional  action  directly  after  birth. 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  207 

Now  these  organic  stimuli,  which  affect  us  so  essen- 
tially though  we  are  not  conscious  of  their  operations, 
may  provoke  answering  movements.  I  am  not  now 
referring  to  the  contraction  and  dilatations  of  blood- 
vessels and  the  consequent  disturbances  of  nutrition 
and  secretion  which  they  may  undoubtedly  occasion 
in  other  parts  of  the  body,  but  to  the  movements  of 
animal  life.  Flourens  observed  birds  which  had  been 
deprived  of  their  hemispheres  to  stand  on  one  leg, 
and,  after  a  time,  owing  probably  to  the  sensory 
stimulus  of  fatigue,  change  to  the  other  leg ;  shake 
their  heads,  and  put  them  under  the  wings  for  sleep ; 
ruffle  their  feathers,  and  sometimes  plume  them  with  their 
beaks.  Neither  intelligence  nor  will  could  have  any  part 
in  the  movements ;  they  were  sensori-motor,  and  some  of 
them  probably  in  answer  to  stimuli  arising  within  the 
body.  Similar  movements  to  relieve  fatigue  or  an  uneasy 
position  take  place  in  ourselves  when  we  are  asleep,  or 
when  our  attention  is  so  deeply  absorbed  in  thought  that 
we  have  not  the  least  consciousness  of  them.  Let  any 
one  who  is  accustomed  to  write  while  standing  at  a  desk 
request  some  person  to  mark  and  record  the  various 
movements  of  his  body  which  he  makes  while  his  atten- 
tion is  so  intently  engaged  in  thought  and  composition 
that  he  is  unconscious  of  what  else  he  is  doing,  and  he 
will  be  surprised  how  many  he  has  really  made.  In 
animals  the  actions  respondent  to  the  organic  stimuli 
constitute  a  great  part  of  their  daily  activity ;  and  in  man, 
when  the  influence  of  the  highest  nervous  centres  is 
weakened  by  disease,  or  when  an  organic  stimulus  has  an 
abnormal  energy,  as  happens  sometimes  in  insanity,  we 
may  see  the  instinct  for  food  or  the  sexual  instinct  mani- 
fested in  a  perverted  and  shameless  manner.  So  far 
there  is  truth  in  a  remark  made  by  Jacobi,  that  the 
actions  of  the  insane  have  an  instinct-like  character,  as 
their  physiognomies  assume  an  animal-like  look.  In  a 


zo8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

complete  description  of  sensori-motor  function  it  will  be 
necessary  to  take  account  of  the  organic  stimuli  from 
within  the  body  as  causes  of  various  purposive  move- 
ments. 

The  difficulty  which  one  has  in  bringing  forward  ex- 
amples of  sensori-motor  action  in  man  springs  from  the 
impossibility,  in  many  instances,  of  eliminating  the  action 
of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  As  soon  as  a  reflex  sensori- 
motor  act  is  performed  it  awakens  an  echo  or  repeating 
movement  of  itself  in  the  convolutions.  In  some  instances, 
however,  the  function  of  the  hemispheres  is  suspended. 
The  somnambulist,  who  walks  in  dangerous  places  and 
goes  through  a  series  of  performances  when  asleep,  clearly 
receives  information  from  some  of  his  senses,  by  which  he 
guides  his  movements.  In  those  cases  of  epilepsy, 
quoted  in  the  last  chapter  to  illustrate  reflex  action, 
in  which  the  person,  during  the  transient  unconscious- 
ness, goes  on  with  the  work  which  he  was  engaged  upon 
when  the  fit  seized  him,  and  when  he  comes  to  himself 
is  unaware  of  what  has  happened,  it  is  evident  that  the 
acts  are  respondent  to  sensory  stimuli.  When  a  person 
is  put  under  the  influence  of  chloroform  in  order  to  have 
a  surgical  operation  performed  painlessly,  it  occasionally 
happens,  if  he  is  not  completely  narcotized,  that  as  soon 
as  the  operation  is  begun  he  shrieks  violently  and  strug- 
gles with  all  his  might,  displaying  all  the  ordinary  indica- 
tions of  suffering  so  plainly  that  a  bystander  is  convinced 
he  is  in  great  agony  ;  and  yet  when  his  consciousness  is 
restored  after  the  operation  he  is  surprised  when  he  is 
told  that  it  has  been  done,  declares  positively  that  he  felt 
no  pain,  and  is  unaware  of  his  shrieks  and  struggles.* 

*  Chloroform  narcotizes  the  brain  from  above  downwards — first, 
thought  being  affected,  then  sensation,  and  lastly  the  purely  reflex 
acts.  In  these  cases,  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres are  narcotized,  but  that  the  sensory  ganglia  are  not  fully 
under  the  influence  of  the  chloroform.  Dr.  Lauder  Brunton  has 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  209 

Two  explanations  offer  themselves  :  either  he  really  felt 
the  pain  at  the  time,  as  he  seemed  to  do,  and  when  he 
came  to  himself  had  clean  forgotten  it ;  or  the  phenomena 
were  entirely  sensori-motor,  the  cries  and  struggles  being 
as  purely  automatic  as  the  cry  and  struggle  which  the 
frog  deprived  of  its  cerebral  hemispheres  makes  when  the 
skin  of  its  back  is  sharply  scratched.  Schroeder  van  der 
Kolk  mentions  a  case  of  a  lady  who  had  her  breast  ampu- 
tated while  she  was  under  the  influence  of  chloroform, 
and  who,  though  she  felt  no  pain,  was  perfectly  con- 
scious on  awakening  of  having  heard  herself  shriek.  If 
she  remembered  the  shriek,  why  should  she  not  have 
remembered  the  pain  had  she  really  felt  it  1  The  same 
observer  has  also  noticed  violent  shrieking  in  apoplexy, 
where  there  was  not  the  least  trace  of  consciousness 
manifested.  Children  learn  to  speak  by  reason  of  an  in- 
voluntary impulse  which  they  notably  evince  to  reproduce 
a  sound  that  is  heard;  and  any  one  who  has  walked 
through  a  parrot-house,  and  heard  the  discordant  screams 
which  make  the  place  hideous,  must  surely  have  some- 
times felt  an  involuntary  inclination  to  shriek  also.  The 
clenching  of  the  teeth  and  hands  during  severe  pain  is 
probably  a  sensori-motor  action,  like  the  shrieking  which 
is  another  motor  expression  of  it,  both  acts  unquestion- 
ably relieving  it  in  some  measure ;  indeed,  were  the  spas- 
modic clenching  to  become  a  general  convulsion,  the 
pain  would  probably  be  no  longer  felt  One  might  per- 
haps inhibit  the  pain  of  acute  neuralgia  by  producing 
violent  convulsions,  and  in  like  manner  inhibit  convul- 
sions by  producing  an  agonizing  neuralgia. 

ingeniously  surmised  that  sudden  deaths  under  chloroform,  during 
surgical  operations,  are  not  always  to  be  ascribed  to  an  overdose  of 
the  chloroform,  but  to  the  shock  of  the  operation,  which  shock  pro- 
duced the  fatal  effect  simply  because  the  chloroform  had  not  been 
given  freely  enough  to  narcotize  the  basal  ganglia  as  well  as  the 
hemispheres  of  the  brain.  Biit.  A  fed.  Journal,  Dec.  4th,  1875. 


210  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  instinctive  acts  of  animals,  however,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  furnish  the  most  striking  instances  of 
sensori-motor  action.  Instinctive  acts  differ  from  reflex 
acts,  such  as  the  decapitated  frog  performs,  in  being  more 
complicated  ;  they  are  equally  automatic,  but  in  them  a 
combination  and  succession  of  movements  take  place  in 
answer  to  a  combination  and  succession  of  impressions. 
When  we  observe  the  wonderful  operations  which  insects 
perform,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  that  they  are  little  more 
than  automata,  acting  with  almost  mechanical  constancy 
in  answer  to  the  stimuli  which  they  are  adapted  to  receive; 
but  in  reflecting  upon  their  operations,  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  take  heed  that  we  do  not  rashly  measure  the 
nature  and  range  of  their  senses  by  the  nature  and  range 
of  our  own.  As  Mr.  Wallace  has  remarked,*  their  sight 
may  far  exceed  ours  both  in  delicacy  and  range,  and  may 
possibly  give  them  knowledge  of  the  intimate  constitu- 
tion of  bodies  analogous  to  that  which  we  obtain  by  the 
spectroscope.  Insects  certainly  appreciate  sounds  of  ex- 
treme delicacy.  Besides  the  minute  organs  plentifully 
supplied  with  nerves  which  are  presumed  to  be  the  organs 
of  hearing,  the  orthoptera  (such  as  grasshoppers,  &c.)  have 
what  are  supposed  to  be  ears  on  their  forelegs.  In  flies 
the  third  joint  of  the  antennae  contains  thousands  of 
nerve  fibres  which  end  in  small  open  cells ;  these  have 
been  supposed  to  be  organs  of  smell ;  or,  it  may  be, 
although  it  is  not  so  probable,  that  they  are  organs  of 
some  sense  which  man  has  not,  and  receive  impressions 

*  "That  their  visual  organs  do  possess  some  powers  which  ours 
do  not,  is  indicated  by  the  extraordinary  crystalline  rods  radiating 
from  the  optic  ganglion  to  the  facets  of  the  compound  eye,  which 
rods  vary  in  form  and  thickness  in  different  parts  of  their  length, 
and  possess  distinctive  characters  in  each  group  of  insects.  This 
complex  apparatus,  so  different  from  anything  in  the  eyes  of  verte- 
brates, may  subserve  some  function  quite  inconceivable  by  us,  as 
well  as  that  which  we  know  as  vision." — On  Natural  Selection.  A. 
R.  Wallace,  p.  202. 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  211 

of  which  he  has  not  the  least  perception.  Certain  it  is 
that  insects  have  an  acuteness  of  sense  by  virtue  of 
which  they  are  in  intimate  relations  with  surroundings 
which  we  cannot  perceive ;  wherefore  the  automatic 
movements  that  are  organically  linked  on  to  the  im- 
pressions they  receive  appear  to  us  marvellous  and  in- 
explicable. 

Not  long  since,  a  correspondent  of  a  public  journal 
related  the  following  facts  in  a  letter  to  it  : — He 
raised  a  female  tiger-moth  some  years  ago  from  the 
caterpillar  state,  and  put  it  in  a  gauze-cage  in  a  smok- 
ing-room opening  into  a  town  garden ;  in  less  than  two 
hours  five  male  tiger-moths  flew  to  the  cage,  although 
no  flutter  of  wings  or  other  sound  was  audible.  He 
had  sat  in  the  same  room  with  the  window  open  and 
a  light  burning  hundreds  of  nights  without  ever  seeing 
a  tiger-moth.  It  may  fairly  be  presumed  that  the 
female  moth  made  some  peculiar  noise  inaudible  to 
human  ears,  or  emitted  some  emanation,  imperceptible  to 
human  smell,  by  which  the  male  moths  were  attracted. 
Were  we  to  measure  the  delicacy  of  the  dog's  sense  of 
smell  by  our  own,  we  should  gaze  in  wonder  on  what 
would  seem  the  mysterious  instinct  by  which  it  pursues 
its  patient  and  sinuous  course  through  field  after  field 
until  it  drives  the  hare  from  its  hidden  seat ;  or  were  we 
to  allow  the  vultures  no  keener  sight  or  smell  than  we 
possess,  it  would  be  impossible  to  understand  how  it  is 
that,  when  not  a  creature  of  the  kind  was  previously 
visible  in  the  heavens,  they  should  be  instantly  gathered 
together  from  the  remotest  quarters  of  the  horizon  to  the 
spot  where  the  carcase  is.  It  is  well  known  with  what 
speed  and  certainty  the  carrier  pigeon  finds  its  way  to  its 
far  distant  home  ;  and  there  are  many  stories  telling  how 
a  cat  or  a  dog  which  has  been  removed  to  a  strange  place 
far  away  from  its  home,  under  circumstances  which  reni 
dered  it  impossible  that  the  animal  could  have  made 


212  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

observations  by  sight  to  guide  it  in  returning,  will  never- 
theless find  its  way  back.  If  one  might  venture  a  con- 
jectural explanation  of  so  obscure  a  matter,  it  would  be 
that  it  is  guided  back  by  a  train  of  smells  which  it  re- 
members as  they  are  re-excited,  just  as  a  man  who  was 
finding  his  way  home  would  be  guided  by  remembering 
objects  which  he  had  seen.  As  we  know  that  these 
animals  have  the  same  number  and  the  same  kind  of 
senses  which  we  have,  we  must  suppose  a  much  more 
acute  susceptibility  in  one  or  more  of  their  senses  ;  but 
even  then  we  cannot  easily  conceive  how  they  should  act 
at  so  great  a  distance.  It  helps  not  to  assume  a  co- 
operation of  reason,  for  the  reason  of  the  greatest  philo- 
sopher would  not  prevent  him  from  losing  his  way  hope- 
lessly under  like  circumstances.* 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  human  senses,  especially 
those  of  touch  and  smell,  are  capable  of  a  much  more 
acute  development  than  that  which  they  commonly  re- 
ceive. The  loss  of  one  sense  is  notably  followed  by  an 
increase  in  the  functions  of  those  which  remain,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  greater  attention  given  to  them.  There  is 
good  evidence  that  blind  persons  may  learn  to  distinguish 
colours  by  the  touch.  Dr.  Abercrombie  mentions  two 
instances  of  blind  men  who  were  much  esteemed  as 

*  "  But  let  us  suppose  a  nation  of  men,  blind  from  their  infancy, 
among  whom  a  stranger  arrives,  the  only  man  who  can  see  in  all 
the  country  ;  let  us  suppose  this  stranger  travelling  with  some  of  the 
natives,  and  that  one  while  be  foretells  to  them  that  in  case  they 
walk  straight  forward,  in  half  an  hour  they  shall  meet  men  or  cattle, 
or  come  to  a  house  ;  that,  if  they  turn  to  the  right  and  proceed,  they 
shall  in  a  few  minutes  be  in  danger  of  falling  down  a  precipice  ;  that, 
shaping  their  course  to  the  left,  they  will  in  such  a  time  arrive  at  a 
river,  a  wood,  or  a  mountain.  What  think  you  ?  Must  they  not 
be  infinitely  surprised  that  one  who  had  never  been  in  this  country 
before  should  know  it  so  much  better  than  themselves  ?  And  would 
not  those  predictions  seem  to  them  as  unaccountable  and  incredible 
as  prophecy  to  a  minute  philosopher  ?" — Divine  Visual  Language:  a 
Dialogue.  l$ishop  Berkeley. 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  213 

judges  of  horses  :  one  of  them  declared  a  horse  to  be 
blind — though  several  persons  had  failed  to  observe  the 
fact — by  recognising  a  peculiar  and  unusual  caution  in  its 
manner  of  putting  down  its  feet ;  the  other  pronounced 
a  horse  to  be  blind  of  one  eye,  by  feeling  the  blind  eye 
to  be  colder  than  the  other.  He  had  known,  too,  several 
instances  of  persons  aflfected  with  that  extreme  degree  of 
deafness  which  occurs  in  the  deaf  and  dumb,  who  had  a 
peculiar  susceptibility  to  particular  kinds  of  sounds,  de- 
pending apparently  upon  an  impression  communicated  to 
their  sense  of  touch.  They  could  tell,  for  instance,  the 
approach  of  a  carriage  in  the  street  without  seeing  it, 
before  it  was  taken  notice  of  by  persons  who  had  the 
use  of  all  their  senses.  They  were,  in  fact,  in  the  posi- 
tion of  those  lowly  organised  beings  which  have  no 
special  organs  of  hearing  or  of  sight,  but  which  are 
clearly  in  some  degree  sensible  of  vibrations  of  sound 
and  undulations  of  light. (2) 

All  the  senses  have  proceeded  by  evolution  from 
the  simple  and  primordial  sense  of  touch ;  and  when 
the  higher  senses  fail,  this  sense  is  capable  of  re- 
suming to  some  extent,  even  in  the  highest  animals, 
its  primordial  and  general  functions.  Mr.  Levy  de- 
clares that  whether  in  a  house  or  in  the  open  air, 
whether  walking  or  standing  still,  he  can,  although  quite 
blind,  tell  whether  he  is  opposite  an  object,  and  can  per- 
ceive whether  it  is  tall  or  short,  slender  or  bulky ;  he  can 
also  detect  whether  it  be  a  solitary  object  or  a  continuous 
fence,  and  whether  it  be  a  close  fence  or  consist  of  open 
rails.  Currents  of  air  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  power ; 
nor  has  the  sense  of  hearing.  It  seems  to  him  that  he 
perceives  objects  through  the  skin  of  his  face,  which  he 
has  ascertained  by  experiments  to  be  the  only  part  of 
his  body  possessing  this  power.  Stopping  his  ears  does 
not  interfere  with  it,  but  covering  his  face  with  a  thick 
veil  destroys  it  altogether;  and  it  is  not  diminished  by 


214  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ordinary  darkness,  but  it  is  by  a  fog.*  This  peculiar  sus- 
ceptibility would  appear  to  be  a  modification  of  tactile 
sensation,  existing  only  in  that  part  of  the  skin  which  is 
habitually  exposed,  and  specially  educated  in  conse- 
quence ;  and  it  is  of  great  interest,  as  marking  an  inter- 
mediate condition  of  development  between  touch  and 
sight  through  which  animals  have  probably  passed,  in  the 
course  of  evolution,  before  the  latter  sense  was  distinctly 
differentiated  and  specialised.  It  helps  us  to  conceive 
how,  before  a  special  organ  of  vision  was  formed,  a 
portion  of  the  covering  of  the  body  in  the  lowest  organ- 
isms may  have  been  differentiated  so  as  to  receive  im- 
pressions which  were  neither  impressions  of  touch,  nor  of 
sight  exactly,  but  intermediate  -between  the  two — transi- 
tion stages  in  the  development  of  touch  into  sight  Bats 
at  the  present  day  display  a  susceptibility  of  the  same 
kind ;  for  they  will  fly  about  a  room  without  striking 
against  the  objects  in  it  after  their  eyes  have  been  put 
out.t 

The  sense  of  smell  may  also  be  cultivated  to  a  perfec- 
tion of  which  we  little  think  until  we  set  ourselves  to 
observe  or  collect  instances  and  to  reflect  upon  the 
matter.  Digby  tells  of  a  man  who,  like  the  negroes, 
could  distinguish  the  approach  of  an  enemy  by  the  smell, 
and  his  wife  from  other  women  by  the  same  sense.  A 
certain  religious  person  possessed  almost  divination  in 
this  respect,  for  he  was  said  to  be  able  to  recognise 
persons  by  their  different  odours,  and  even  to  distinguish 

*  Mr.  Levy  expresses  his  conviction  that  none  of  the  five  senses 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  existence  of  this  power,  which  he  con- 
siders  to  be  an  unrecognised  sense,  and  calls  by  the  name  of  "  Facial 
Perception." — Blindness  and  the  Blind,  by  W.  Hanks  Levy. 

t  The  use  of  the  same  words  to  describe  the  qualities  of  the 
sensations  of  different  senses  points  to  this  fundamental  analogy — 
f.f.,  softness  of  touch  and  softness  of  colour,  a  harsh  sound  and 
harsh  colouring,  a  sweet  taste  and  a  sweet  sound,  &c. 


iv.l  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  215 

chaste  from  unchaste  women  in  the  same  way.*  Haller 
remarks  that  negroes  in  the  Antilles  can  distinguish  by 
scent  the  footsteps  of  a  negro  from  those  of  a  French- 
man ;  t  and  Humboldt  affirms  that  the  Peruvian  Indians 
in  the  darkest  night  can  not  merely  perceive  by  their 
sense  of  smell  the  approach  of  a  stranger,  but  can  say 
whether  he  is  Indian,  European,  or  Negro.  %  Dugald 
Stewart  relates  that  James  Mitchell,  who  was  deaf,  dumb, 
and  blind,  could  tell  by  his  sense  of  smell  whether  a 
stranger  was  present  in  the  room  or  not,  and  indicate  in 
what  part  of  the  room  he  might  happen  to  be;  it  is 
probable  that  any  dog  would  easily  do  the  same  thing. 
Idiots  sometimes  display  a  remarkable  susceptibility  of 
smell,  accepting  or  rejecting,  like  animals,  particular 
articles  of  food  after  sniffing  them,  or  manifesting  their 
lik.ing  or  dislike  for  particular  persons  after  applying  the 
same  test.  §  These  instances  prove  that  we  might  obtain 
a  much  more  intimate  knowledge  than  we  do  of  the  pro- 
perties of  many  natural  objects  by  our  senses  of  smell, 
taste,  and  touch,  were  we  to  cultivate  them  systemati- 
cally, and  did  we  not  depend  so  much  as  we  habitually 
do  upon  the  sense  of  sight ;  and  they  serve  well  to  indi- 
cate not  only  how  much  the  senses  of  animals  may  sur- 
pass ours  in  range  and  delicacy,  but  how  probable  it  is 
that  many  of  their  complex  instinctive  acts  which  strike 
us  with  wonder  have  their  springs  in  sensational  stimuli 
by  which  we  are  not  affected.  Could  we  unravel  the 
intricacies  of  their  sensori-motor  functions,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  we  should  discover  the  explanation  of 
their  most  complex  instincts.  Unfortunately  the  neces- 
sary data  are  wanting. 

*  Traill  Philosophique  et  Phyiiologique  dc  F  Ilcrcditi  NaturcUe. 
Par  le  Dr.  Prosper  Lucas,  vol.  i.,  p.  162. 

t  White,  On  the  Gradation  of  A/an,  p.  148. 

*  Humboldt's  Cosmos. 

§  A  case  of  the  kind  is  related  in  Body  and  Mind,   2nd   ed., 
p.  51. 


2i6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

I  go  on  now  to  consider  briefly  the  origin  of  instincts, 
moved  thereto  more  particularly  by  an  expectation  of  the 
light  which  the  study  of  their  mode  of  origin  will  throw 
upon  the  education  of  the  nervous  system  of  man.  In 
the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  dispute  that  instincts  pass 
by  hereditary  transmission  :  the  ant  inherits  the  instincts 
of  the  ant,  the  bee  those  of  the  bee,  the  beaver  those  of 
the  beaver,  as  distinctly  as  each  inherits  the  anatomical 
and  physiological  characters  of  its  progenitors.  Indeed 
the  fixedness  of  instincts  is  so  great,  and  their  transmis- 
sion so  certain,  that,  as  Mr.  Darwin  has  pointed  out,  they 
persist  long  after  the  conditions  of  life  to  which  they  were 
adapted  have  been  changed.  Among  other  instances,  he 
mentions  that  young  pigs  sometimes  squat  when  fright- 
ened, and  in  this  way  try  to  conceal  themselves  even  in 
an  open  and  bare  place ;  that  young  turkeys,  when  the 
mother  gives  the  danger  cry,  run  away  and  try  to  hide 
themselves,  like  young  partridges  or  pheasants,  in  order 
that  their  mother  may  take  flight,  of  which  she  has  lost 
the  power  ;  that  the  dog,  however  well  and  regularly  fed, 
often  buries,  like  the  fox,  superfluous  food,  and  turns 
round  and  round  on  a  carpet  before  lying  down,  as  if  to 
trample  down  grass  to  form  a  bed ;  and  that  lambs  and 
kids  discover  the  traces  of  their  former  alpine  habits  by 
the  way  in  which  they  crowd  and  frisk  on  the  smallest 
hillocks.* 

From  these  examples  we  learn — first,  that  the  tend- 
ency of  instincts  to  pass  by  hereditary  transmission  is 
so  strong  that  traces  of  them  may  be  found  centuries 
after  a  change  in  the  external  conditions  to  which  they 
were  adapted,  and  when  they  have  long  ceased  to  be  of 
the  least  service  to  the  animal;  and,  secondly,  that  the 
continued  action,  through  generations,  of  changed  ex- 
ternal conditions,  such  as  domestication  implies,  does 
modify  the  organism  of  the  animal,  causing  a  decay  of 

*  On  the  Origin  rfSfuus  by  means  of  Natural  Selection.  - 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  217 

the  old  instincts  which  are  not  in  use,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  new  instincts  suited  to  the  changed  conditions. 
The  original  instinct  of  the  dog  was  to  howl  like  a  wolf; 
its  acquired  instinct,  which  it  has  possessed  so  long  that 
it  has  become  natural,  is  to  bark.  We  are  brought  face 
to  face  then  with  two  laws :  the  law  of  heredity,  and  the 
law  of  variation  ;  and  it  is  in  the  operation  of  these  two 
laws  that  we  discover  the  mode  of  origin  of  new  instincts 
and  the  probable  mode  of  origin  of  all  instincts  from  the 
beginning. 

Adopting  the  Darwinian  law  of  evolution,  we  assume 
instincts  to  have  been  formed,  as  species  have  been 
formed,  by  the  accumulation  of  slight  differences  which 
have  been  inherited.  Unknown  causes  acting  upon  the 
brain  have  produced  what  have  been  called  spontaneous 
variations  of  simpler  instinctive  actions  ;*  if  these  vari- 
ations were  adapted  to  the  external  conditions,  and  gave 
the  animal  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
they  would  survive  by  natural  selection  and  be  trans- 
mitted by  heredity ;  and  thus  in  the  course  of  time 
they  would  be  fixed  in  its  nature.  The  occurrence 
of  a  variation,  the  perpetuation  of  an  advantageous 
variation  by  natural  selection,  and  its  hereditary  trans- 
mission have  been  the  main  factors  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  greater  number  of  the  more  complex 

*  But  why  should  they  be  called  spontaneous,  seeing  that  the  term 
is  so  apt  to  occasion  misunderstanding  ?  They  are  surely  the  effects 
of  antecedent  causes,  though  we  know  not  what  these  causes  may 
be.  They  may  be  conceived  to  arise  in  two  ways  :  either  by  a 
variation  in  the  external  conditions  provoking  an  organic  adapta- 
tion ;  or  by  a  new  impulse  being  generated  from  the  combination  of 
the  organic  antecedents,  in  like  manner  as  a  chemical  compound 
displays  properties  that  are  not  those  of  its  constituents.  It  would 
be  strange  if  while  the  simplest  chemical  combination  develops 
entirely  new  properties,  the  infinitely  more  complex  organic  com- 
bination of  two  beings — each  of  which  again  is  a  complex  result  of 
organic  combinations— did  not  develop  new  impulses  or  properties 
in  the  product. 


£i8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

instincts.  If  it  be  asked  whence  came  the  simpler 
instincts  which  have  been  assumed  as  a  basis  for  the 
development  of  the  more  complex,  we  must  seek  for 
the  basis  of  them  in  the  complex  reflex  actions  from 
which,  as  already  pointed  out,  they  have  proceeded  by 
successive  complications  in  accordance  with  the  same 
laws  of  natural  selection  and  hereditary  transmission  of 
variations  ;  from  the  more  complex  reflex  actions  we  may 
descend  in  like  manner  to  the  more  simple,  and  from 
these  to  more  simple  still,  until  at  last  we  reach  the 
primordial  reaction  of  the  apparently  homogeneous  sub- 
stance of  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  life.  So  we  trace  a 
gradual  progression  from  the  most  simple  and  general 
reaction,  through  successive  complications  of  reflex 
action,  to  those  most  special  and  complex  sensori-motor 
actions  which  are  called  instinctive. 

Another  way — though  it  is  at  bottom  not  another,  but 
the  same  way — in  which  we  observe  instincts  to  be  formed 
in  the  higher  animals  is  by  the  transformation  of  intel- 
lectual into  instinctive  acts.  It  is  certain  that  intelligent 
actions  which  were  acquired  by  experience  or  education  in 
the  first  instance  have,  after  being  performed  during  many 
generations,  been  converted  into  instincts  and  inherited. 
G.  Leroy  made  the  observation  long  ago  that  in  districts 
where  war  is  made  against  foxes  the  young  ones,  before 
they  have  had  any  experience,  display  more  caution  and 
cunning  than  old  foxes  in  districts  where  they  are  not 
persecuted ;  and  he  accounted  for  the  fact  by  attributing 
language  to  animals.  While  admitting  that  old  foxes 
may  use  means  to  instruct  their  young,  we  may  agree 
with  F.  Cuvier,  who  suggested  the  more  probable  explan- 
ation that  the  greater  natural  cunning  displayed  was 
owing,  not  to  education,  but  to  the  hereditary  transmission 
of  acquired  instincts.  Birds  in  desert  islands  evince  no 
fear  of  man  when  they  first  make  acquaintance  with  him, 
but  after  they  have  had  experience  of  the  wanton 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  219 

destruction  which  he  works  among  them,  the  sight  of  his 
near  presence  instantly  excites  an  instinct  to  escape.  It 
may  be  taken  for  granted  that  birds  in  inhabited  countries 
would  show  no  more  fear  of  him  than  they  do  of  sheep, 
were  it  not  for  the  embodied  memories  which  they  have 
of  the  enemy  which  he  is  to  them  ;  Darwin  has  remarked 
that  large  birds  are  much  more  shy  than  small  ones, 
because  they  have  been  more  persecuted  by  man ;  and  I 
may  add  that  among  small  birds  robins  approach  him 
more  boldly  than  others  because  it  has  long  been  incul- 
cated on  children  as  almost  a  sin  to  kill  a  robin. 

Many  other  facts  of  the  same  kind  might  be  quoted, 
some  of  which  were  carefully  observed  and  recorded  half  a 
century  ago  by  Knight  He  made  trial  with  some  pointer 
pups,  having  taken  great  care  that  when  they  were  first 
taken  into  the  field  they  received  no  instruction  from  the 
old  dogs.  The  very  first  day  one  of  the  pups  stood 
trembling  with  excitement,  its  eyes  fixed,  and  all  its 
muscles  strained,  pointing  at  the  partridges,  as  its  ances- 
tors had  been  taught  to  do.  A  young  polecat  terrier  was 
thrown  into  a  state  of  great  excitement  the  first  time  he 
ever  saw  a  polecat,  while  a  spaniel  remained  calm  and 
indifferent.  The  taming  by  man  of  the  animals  which 
are  now  domesticated  without  doubt  cost  him  great 
pains  originally  ;  and  had  there  been  no  tendency  to  the 
fixation  of  acquired  modifications  by  hereditary  trans- 
mission, had  the  primitive  instincts  continued  to  display 
themselves  with  their  original  force  in  each  succeeding 
generation,  he  would  never  have  succeeded  in  domesti 
eating  them.*  "  Will  the  unicorn  be  willing  to  serve  thee, 

*  The  following  quotation  shows  what  a  clear  conception  Cabanis 
had  fonned  of  the  modification  of  an  organism  by  its  environment, 
and  of  the  fixation  of  the  new  organic  habits  or  dispositions  by 
hereditary  transmission  through  successive  generations: — "  Dea  im- 
pressions particulieres,  mais  constantes  et  toujours  les  memes,  sont 
done  capable  de  modifier  les  dispositions  organiques  et  de  rendre 
leur  modifications  fixes  dans  les  races.  .  .  .  Et  si  les  causes  deter- 


220  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

or  abide  by  thy  crib  ?  Canst  them  bind  the  unicorn  with 
his  band  in  the  furrow  ?  or  will  he  harrow  the  furrows 
after  thee  ?  "  * 

These  instances  of  instincts  that  have  been  acquired 
by  the  transformation  of  intellectual  acts  illustrate  really 
the  operation  of  the  same  laws  which  are  manifested  in 
the  acquisition  of  complex  instincts  by  the  so-called 
spontaneous  variation  of  simple  instincts  ;  the  only  differ- 
ence being  that  the  variation  is  produced,  not  by  an 
unknown  cause,  but  by  human  agency,  and  that  its  sur- 
vival is  brought  about,  not  by  natural,  but  by  human 
selection.  They  may  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  experi- 
ments which  test  and  support  the  theory  of  the  natural 
origin  of  instincts.  We  observe  in  our  own  experience 
that  intellectual  acts,  when  frequently  repeated,  are  done 
easily  by  habit,  and  finally  become  automatic ;  habit  may 
indeed  be  regarded  in  such  case  as  instinct  in  the  making. 
What  we  have  to  realize  is  that  the  nervous  system  of 
man  and  animal  is  moulded  structurally  according  to  the 
modes  of  its  functional  exercise,  and  that  if  these  be  defi- 
nite in  character  and  frequently  repeated,  it  becomes  in 
time  an  automatic  machine  which  performs  its  habitual 
functions  with  mechanical  certainty  on  occasions  of 
the  suitable  stimuli.  The  formation  of  a  certain  con- 
clusion in  logic  by  an  intelligent  mind,  when  the 

minantes  de  1'habitude  premiere  ne  discontinuent  pas  d'agir  pendant 
la  duree  de  plusieurs  generations  successives,  il  se  forme  une  nouvelle 
nature  acquise,  laquelle  ne  peut,  a  son  tour,  etre  changee,  qu'autant 
que  ces  memes  causes  cessent  d'agir  pendant  longtemps,  et  surtout 
que  des  causes  differentes  viennent  d'imprimer  a  I'economie  animale 
une  autre  suite  de  determinations." — Rapports  du  Physique  tt  du 
Moral  de  CHomme,  J.  G.  Cabanis. 

"  Qu'est-ce  que  nos  principes  naturels,  sinon  nos  principes  ac- 
coutumes?"  says  Pascal.  "La  coutume  est  une  seconde  nature 
qui  detniit  la  premiere.  Pourquoi  la  coutume  n'est-elle  pas 
naturelle  ?  J'ai  bien  peur  que  cette  nature  ne  soit  elle-meme  qu'une 
premiere  coutume,  comme  la  coutume  est  une  seconde  nature." 

*  Job  xxxix.  9,  10. 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  221 

premises  are  clearly  apprehended,  is  as  much  an  auto- 
matic necessity,  or,  if  you  will,  an  instinct,  as  the  act  of 
swimming  by  a  duck  when  it  is  thrown  into  water. 
What  is  physical  necessity,  regarded  objectively,  is,  as 
VVundt  has  remarked,  logical  necessity,  regarded  sub- 
jectively. 

Not  to  anticipate  what  will  come  afterwards,  I  for- 
bear to  proceed  farther  with  this  matter  now.  Enough 
has  been  done  by  the  foregoing  short  exposition  of  the 
nature  and  of  the  mode  of  formation  of  instincts  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  what  I  have  to  say  touching  those 
actions  in  man  which  may  be  described  as  acquired 
sensori-motor  acts.  To  understand  their  nature,  it  is 
necessary  to  pass  for  a  short  time  beyond  the  region  of 
pure  sensation  into  the  higher  region  of  perception,  and 
to  consider  what  relation  the  latter  bears  to  the  former. 
Sensation  expresses  merely  the  state  of  simple  feeling 
without  reference  to  an  external  cause  ;  it  is  wholly 
within,  entirely  subjective  :  perception  includes  not  only 
the  internal  feeling,  but  the  reference  of  it  to  an  external 
cause ;  it  embraces  the  without  as  well  as  the  within,  is 
the  synthesis  of  subject  and  object ;  wherefore  every 
distinct  perception  implies  actually  a  judgment.  In 
order  to  acquire  a  perception,  it  would  seem  that  two 
senses  at  least  must  co-operate ;  and  in  order  to  acquire 
the  completest  perception  possible  of  an  object,  there 
must  be  a  co-operation  of  all  the  senses  which  it  is  cap- 
able of  affecting.  Men  are  often  one-sided  or  defective 
in  judgment  because  they  do  not  bring  themselves  into 
intimate  relations  with  all  the  aspects  of  an  object  or 
event :  they  cannot  understand  it  thoroughly  unless 
they  so  stand  under  it  that  they  perceive  all  its  bearings. 

Let  us  take  the  simplest  perception  conceivable :  that 
of  something  external  to  us,  something  which  is  not  our- 
selves. The  muscular  feelings  co-operate  with  the  sense 
of  touch  to  give  us  this  information.  The  order  of  events 
11 


222  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

is  presumably  in  this  wise  :  the  object  excites  the  sensa- 
tion, which  is  at  first  entirely  subjective  ;  the  immediate 
outcome  of  the  sensation  is  a  simple  movement,  which 
thereupon  brings  into  action  the  muscular  sense,  exciting 
certain  muscular  feelings;  the  effect  of  the  muscular 
feelings  is  to  produce  further  movements  of  the  limb, 
whereby,  pressing  against  the  object  or  moving  over  its 
surface,  or  otherwise  acting  upon  it,  its  position  in  rela- 
tion to  the  limb  is  changed  ;  the  consequences  of  which 
are  further  modifications  of  the  original  sensation  of 
touch  in  correspondence  with  further  modifications  of 
muscular  feeling.  In  the  association,  fusion,  agglutination, 
consilience,  or  synthesis,  call  it  what  we  will,  of  these 
different  impressions  of  the  tactile  and  the  muscular 
senses  arises  perception,  which  is  necessarily  at  first 
of  a  very  vague  and  obscure  character.  However,  we 
have  now  got  our  perception,  such  as  it  is,  of  an  ex- 
ternal object,  which  on  any  future  occasion  of  touch 
is  represented  mentally  in  relation  to  these  other  simul- 
taneously or  successively  experienced  sensations.*  We 

*  Our  perceptions  of  space  depend  upon  experience  ;  our  visual 
sensations  are  not  images,  but  signs,  the  meaning  of  which  we  have 
to  learn  by  expeiience.  This  we  do  by  comparing  them  with  the 
result  of  our  movements,  with  the  changes  which  we  make  in  the 
outer  world.  The  infant  as  it  learns  to  grasp,  to  turn  its  eyes  and 
Lands  to  an  object,  to  turn  it  over  and  over,  so  as  to  see  it  in  all  posi- 
tions, learns  to  recognise  the  different  views  of  it  in  connection  with 
•  the  movements.  Thus  a  conception  of  the  object  is  obtained,  and 
we  are  ever  afterwards  able  to  imagine  what  appearance  it  would 
present  if  looked  at  from  some  other  point  of  view,  and  what  move- 
ments we  should  have  to  make  in  order  to  put  it  in  that  point  of 
view.  "I  have  often,"  says  Helmholtz,  "noticed  a  striking  in- 
stance of  what  I  have  been  saying  in  looking  at  stereoscopic  pictures. 
If,  for  example,  we  look  at  elaborate  outlines  of  complicated 
crystalline  forms,  it  is  often  at  first  difficult  to  see  what  they  mean. 
\Vhen  this  is  the  case,  I  look  out  two  points  in  the  diagram  which 
correspond,  and  make  them  overlap  by  a  voluntary  movement  of  the 
eyes.  But  as  long  as  I  have  not  made  out  what  kind  of  form  the 


TI.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  223 

perceive  then  the  importance  for  the  perfection  of 
perception,  in  other  words,  for  the  acquisition  of  know- 
ledge, of  the  capacity  of  a  variety  of  movements  of 
the  organ.  The  more  movements  it  is  capable  of 
and  the  more  numerous  the  sensory  nerves  with  which 
it  is  furnished,  the  more  frequent  are  the  occasions  of 
sensations.  We  want  to  get  every  sensation  which  we 
can  of  it,  by  bringing  the  organ  into  every  possible  rela- 
tion with  it,  in  order  to  perfect  our  perception.  So  much 
truth  then  was  there  in  the  saying  of  the  old  Greek 
philosopher  that  man  is  the  wisest  of  animals  by  reason 
of  his  having  hands ;  the  hands  being  capable  of  so 
great  a  variety  of  movements  and  being  furnished  with  a 
highly  developed  tactile  apparatus.  In  like  manner,  it 
might  be  said  that  the  elephant  is  the  most  intelligent  of 
quadrupeds  by  reason  of  its  having  a  trunk ;  for  the 
trunk  is  an  organ  which  has  an  extreme  delicacy  of  touch, 
and  a  great  and  varied  range  of  action. 

We  infer  then  that  the  distinction  between  object  and 
subject  is  not  given  in  our  earliest  sensations.  The  sen- 
sation felt  is  all  that  the  infant  is  at  first  conscious  of;  it 
tastes  before  it  perceives  a  cause  of  taste ;  there  is  no 
distinction  of  subject  and  object,  of  the  ego  and  the  non- 
drawings  are  intended  to  represent,  I  find  that  my  eyes  begin  to 
diverge  again,  and  the  two  points  no  longer  coincide.  Then  I  try 
to  follow  the  different  lines  of  the  figure,  and  suddenly  I  see  what 
the  form  represented  is.  From  that  moment  my  two  eyes  pass  over 
the  outlines  of  the  apparently  solid  body  with  the  utmost  ease,  and 
without  ever  separating.  As  soon  as  we  have  gained  a  correct 
notion  of  the  shape  of  an  object,  we  have  the  rule  for  the  movements 
of  the  eyes  which  are  necessary  for  seeing  it.  In  carrying  out  these 
movements,  and  thus  receiving  the  visual  impressions  we  expect,  we 
retranslate  the  notion  we  have  formed  into  reality,  and  by  finding 
this  retranslation  agrees  with  the  original,  we  become  convinced  of 
the  accuracy  of  our  conception." — Pop.  Scunt.  Led.  p.  304.  We 
may  note  by  the  way  that  the  process  is  fundamentally  the  same  as 
that  by  which  we  form  and  test  our  generalizations  in  observation 
and  reasoning. 


224  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ego.  It  is  an  organic  part  of  nature  and  is  not  conscious 
of  being  a  self.  But  it  makes  movements  which  meet 
with  resistance,  and  it  is  out  of  this  feeling  of  resistance 
that  the  idea  of  an  object  grows ;  when  it  has  been  ex- 
perienced a  sufficient  number  of  times,  the  spontaneous 
inference  of  an  external  world  is  organized  in  the  mind. 
The  notion  is  really  an  induction  spontaneously  made  from 
experience,  at  so  early  a  period  of  life  that  no  one  can  have 
the  least  memory  of  the  moment  or  of  the  manner  of  it. 
But  the  correlate  of  the  idea  of  an  external  world  is  the  idea 
of  a  self  to  which  it  is  external.  This  idea  grows  out  of  the 
internal  impressions  and  the  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain 
accompanying  them :  the  muscular  feelings,  the  sensa- 
tions of  hunger  and  weariness,  the  double  sensation  which 
we  experience  on  touching  a  part  of  our  own  bodies — 
these  contribute  gradually  to  the  definite  individualiza- 
tion  of  the  ego  in  relation  to  the  non-ego.  It  is  a  long 
time  before  a  child  attains  to  a  definite  conscious  idea  of 
its  ego  and  speaks  of  itself  in  the  first  person,  although, 
like  the  animal,  it  manifests  from  the  earliest  period  a,  so 
to  speak,  instinctive  feeling  of  self.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
obscure  instinct  precedes  definite  knowledge.  The  lower 
we  descend  in  the  animal  scale  the  less  distinct  becomes 
the  consciousness  of  a  distinction  between  the  self  and 
the  not  self,  until,  as  we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  it 
ceases  to  exist.  No  one  supposes  a  tree  to  possess  it ; 
and  even  those  who  think  that  the  infusory  animalcule 
has  the  simple  primordial  consciousness  of  sensation, 
will  hardly  go  so  far  as  to  invest  it  with  the  higher  con- 
sciousness of  perception. 

In  considering  the  mode  of  origin  of  the  ideas  of 
subject  and  object  in  the  human  mind,  it  is  import- 
ant to  remember,  what  some  persons  seem  to  forget, 
that  we  have  an  individual  body  to  begin  with;  that 
there  is  a  physiological  union  or  consensus  of  organs 
before  consciousness  appears  on  the  scene,  the  organism 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  225 

being  a  whole  in  which  there  is  not  a  part  but  acts 
upon  the  whole,  as  the  whole  again  reacts  upon  and 
through  every  part ;  that  this  union  or  commonwealth  of 
organs,  bound  together  by  an  intimate  sympathy,  is  re- 
presented unconsciously  in  the  brain  as  the  central  organ  ; 
and  that  when  it  is  awakened  into  consciousness  by  ex- 
ternal impressions,  it  becomes  naturally  the  idea  of  self. 
The  ego  is  the  unity  of  the  organism  declaring  itself  in 
consciousness.  When  I  touch  a  certain  part  of  my  body, 
I  am  conscious  of  a  sensation  of  touching  and  of  a 
sensation  of  being  touched,  both  sensations  in  my  self : 
the  organism  is  the  self,  and  consciousness  only  makes 
it  known.  Is  it  any  wonder  then  that  the  idea  of  self 
should  dawn  as  soon  as  conscious  function  begins,  and 
grow  into  definiteness  with  its  development. 

We  should  be  ill  furnished  for  life  if  we  were  entirely 
dependent  upon  our  tactile  and  muscular  feelings,  pri- 
mordial and  paramount  as  they  are.  In  sight,  hearing, 
smell,  and  taste  we  possess  other  important  inlets  of 
knowledge.  When  we  perceive  an  object,  such  as  an 
orange,  we  associate  together  all  the  sensations  which  it 
can  produce  in  us — its  colour,  taste,  smell,  figure,  and 
consistence  ;  this  combination  of  sensations  constituting 
the  object  as  perceived  by  us.  Whether  the  object  has 
an  actual  existence  distinct  from  the  sensation  or  per- 
ception of  it,  as  most  persons  think,  and,  if  so,  how  far 
it  corresponds  to  the  perception  ;  or  whether,  as  Berkeley 
stoutly  maintained,  "  all  those  bodies  which  compose  the 
mighty  frame  of  the  world  have  not  any  subsistence 
without  a  mind"  in  which  they  are  perceived  ;  I  shall  not 
pretend  to  discuss.  Suffice  it  for  present  purposes  that 
all  the  knowledge  of  them  we  have  is  through  the  effects 
which  they  produce  upon  our  senses — in  fact,  in  percep- 
tion. The  more  carefully  we  have  looked  at  the  object, 
touched  it,  experimented  on  it  by  the  different  senses,  in 
order  to  get  the  greatest  number  of  possible  sensations 


226  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

which  it  is  capable  of  exciting,  and  so  to  fulfil  the  condi- 
tions of  sound  induction,  the  more  complete  is  the  per- 
ception of  it  when  present  to  sense,  that  is,  when  the 
proper  nerve-currents  are  excited  by  its  presence,  and 
the  more  complete  the  idea  or  concept  of  it  when  it 
is  absent  from  sense,  but  present  to  memory,  that  is, 
when  the  proper  nerve-currents  are  excited  by  an  in- 
ternal cause.      A   person  born  blind  would  know  an 
orange  by  taste,  or  smell,  or  touch,  but  his  perception 
would  of  course  want  the  sensation  of  those  qualities 
which  sight  alone  imparts  ;  and  if  he  were  to  acquire  sud- 
denly the  power  of  seeing,  it  is  certain  he  would  not  at 
first  recognise  the  orange  by  that  sense  alone  ;  before  he 
could  do  so,  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  associate 
the  new  visual  sensation  with  the  experience  of  the  other 
senses,  especially  of  tactile  and  muscular  sensation.   This 
has  been  proved  experimentally  in  several  cases  in  which 
persons  born  blind  have  gained  sight  by  means  of  a 
surgical  operation  on   the  eyes.      In  like  manner,    the 
perception  of  one  who  was  born  without  smell  or  without 
taste  would  lack  the  information  which  the  sensations  of 
these  senses  respectively  furnish;  and  if  the  absent  sense 
were  suddenly  acquired,  he  would  not  recognise  the  object 
by  it,  until  he  had  brought  the  new  sensation  into  associa- 
tion with  the  previous  experiences  of  his  other  senses : 
it  would  then  take  its  place  in  the  organized  group  or 
cluster  of  sensations  which  constitute  the  object.     Cul- 
tivation of  a  sense  whereby  its  susceptibility  to  impres- 
sions is  sharpened,  or  the  use  of  instruments  which  are 
adapted  to  increase  its  delicacy  and  range,  will  similarly 
add  to  the  perception,  when  the  information  gained  is 
brought  into  relation   with    the  former    sensations    of 
which  it  is  composed.     But  not  otherwise.     Were  any 
one  who  had  never  seen  a  telescope  or  a  microscope 
asked  to  look  for  the  first  time  through   a   telescope 
at  the   moon,  or  through  a  microscope  at  a  flea,   he 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  227 

would   not  in  the  least  recognise  the  object  he  was 
looking  at. 

The  agglutination,  blending,  or  organized  grouping  of 
separate  sensations  which  constitutes  the  perception  of 
an  object,  and  which  is  fundamentally  an  induction  or 
judgment,  takes  place,  we  believe,  in  the  cortical  centres ; 
these  being  the  higher  nerve-centres  in  which  the  sensa- 
tions of  the  lower  sensory  ganglia  are  co-ordinated  into 
the  idea  of  the  object.  This  is  what  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  the  process  as  a  mental  synthesis.*  We  now  go 

*  An  acquired  perception  is  truly  an  induction.  The  mind  infers 
from  the  perceptive  signs  of  one  sense  that  there  are  properties  of 
objects  existing  which,  if  trial  were  made,  the  other  senses  would 
discover.  The  difference  between  this  induction  and  that  which  we 
call  generalization  is  not  in  the  process,  but  in  the  materials.  The 
infant  is  engaged  in  making  such  inductions  from  the  moment  its 
mind  dawns — at  first,  on  a  very  few  objects,  which  constantly  recur, 
its  universe  being  very  limited,  and  its  whole  soul  being  absorbed 
in  them  ;  it  constantly  repeats  the  sensation  and  responsive  move- 
ment, being  gratified  with  trial  and  success,  so  that  the  perception  is 
fashioned  and  fixed  ;  it  does  not  reflect  upon  the  means  by  which  it 
arrives  at  the  result,  but  makes  its  inductions,  like  the  clodhopper, 
unconsciously. 

The  perceptions  which  we  thus  derive  from  our  senses  cannot  be 
analyzed  and  expressed  in  logical  conclusions  ;  but  they  involve  the 
same  kind  of  mental  process  as  the  conclusions  of  logic.  "There 
appears  to  me  to  be  in  reality  only  a  superficial  difference  between 
the  '  conclusions '  of  logicians,  and  those  inductive  conclusions  of 
which  we  recognise  the  result  in  the  conception  we  gain  of  the  outer 
world  through  our  sensations.  The  difference  chiefly  depends  upon 
the  former  conclusions  being  capable  of  expression  in  words,  while 
the  latter  are  not ;  because,  instead  of  words,  they  only  deal  with 
sensations  and  the  memory  of  sensations.  Indeed,  it  is  just  the 
impossibility  of  describing  sensations,  whether  actual  or  remembered, 
in  words,  which  makes  it  so  difficult  to  discuss  this  department  of 
psychology  at  all." — HELMHOLTZ,  Pop.  Sec.  Left.  p.  308.  "  If  I 
know  that  a  particular  way  of  looking,  for  which  I  have  learnt  how 
to  employ  exactly  the  right  kind  of  innervation,  is  necessary  in  order 
to  bring  into  direct  vision  a  point  two  feet  off  and  so  many  feet  to 
the  right,  this  also  is  a  universal  proposition  which  applies  to  every 


32S  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

on  to  remark  that  when  we  have  once  acquired  in  this 
way  the  definite  perception  of  an  object,  it  may  on  all 
future  occasions  be  aroused  by  any  one  of  the  separate 
sensations  of  which  it  is  constituted ;  either  the  sight 
of  an  orange  alone,  or  the  touch  of  it  alone,  or  the 
smell  of  it  alone,  or  the  taste  of  it  alone,  will  excite 
the  idea  of  the  orange,  the  other  possible  sensations 
being,  as  it  were,  understood.  We  know  right  well 
that  these  other  sensations  will  be  forthcoming  if  we 

case  in  which  I  have  fixed  a  given  point  at  that  distance  before  " 

(P-  31°). 

"  The  sensations  of  our  nerves  of  sense  are  mere  symbols  indicat- 
ing certain  external  objects,  arfd  it  is  usually  only  after  considerable 
practice  that  we  acquire  the  power  of  drawing  correct  conclusions 
from  our  sensations  respecting  the  corresponding  objects.  Now  it 
is  a  universal  law  of  the  perceptions  obtained  through  the  senses, 
that  we  pay  only  so  much  attention  to  the  sensations  actually  ex- 
perienced as  is  sufficient  for  us  to  recognise  external  objects.  In 
this  respect  we  are  one-sided  and  inconsiderate  partisans  of  practical 
utility ;  far  more  so  indeed  than  we  suspect.  All  sensations  which 
have  no  direct  reference  to  external  objects  we  are  accustomed,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  entirely  to  ignore,  and  we  do  not  become  aware  of 
them  till  we  make  a  scientific  investigation  of  the  action  of  the 
senses." — HELMHOLTZ. 

After  pointing  out  the  most  striking  analogy  between  names  and 
objects,  the  connection  of  which  must  demonstrably  be  learnt,  and 
sensations  and  the  objects  which  produce  them,  Helmholtz  says : 
"  The  elementary  signs  of  language  are  only  twenty-six  letters,  and 
yet  what  wonderfully  varied  meanings  can  we  express  and  communi- 
cate by  their  combination  !  Consider,  in  comparision  with  this,  the 
enormous  number  of  elementary  signs  with  which  the  machinery  of 
sight  is  provided.  We  may  take  the  number  of  fibres  in  the  optic 
nerves  as  250,0001  Each  of  these  is  capable  of  innumerable  different 
degrees  of  sensation  of  one,  two,  or  three  primary  colours.  It 
follows  that  it  is  possible  to  construct  an  immeasurably  greater 
number  of  combinations  here  than  with  the  few  letters  which  build 
up  our  words.  Nor  must  we  forget  the  extremely  rapid  changes  of 
which  the  images  of  sight  are  capable.  No  wonder,  then,  if  our 
senses  speak  to  us  in  language  which  can  express  far  more  delicate 
distinctions  and  richer  varieties  than  can  be  conveyed  by  words 
(P-  3'4-) 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  229 

make  the  experiment,  but  it  is  as  unnecessary  to  do 
so  on  each  occasion  as  it  is  to  spell  each  letter  in 
a  word  when  we  have  once  learnt  to  read  with  ease. 
The  nerve-current  of  one  sense  is  sufficient  for  our 
purpose.  Just  as  we  pay  away  a  cheque  and  other  per- 
sons take  it  as  payment,  because  we  know  that  it  repre- 
sents its  value  in  cash  which  will  be  forthcoming  when 
it  is  presented,  so  we  use  the  sensation  as  a  sign  of 
former  perception,  without  testing  its  value  by  exciting 
the  associated  sensations.  It  is  not  only,  however,  in 
observation  and  thinking  that  we  thus  employ  it  as  a 
sign.  We  employ  it  in  the  same  way  in  acting,  which 
is  the  outward  issue  or  completion  of  observation  and 
thinking  :  we  observe  in  order  to  act,  and  judgment  is 
the  internal  representation  of  the  outward  act  in  relation 
with  the  perception — that  which  would,  if  outwardly  ex- 
pressed, be  the  act.  For  this  reason  I  have  traced  the 
relations  of  sensation  and  perception  in  this  chapter;  I 
could  not  else  have  placed  our  acquired  sensorimotor 
acts  in  their  true  light. 

Little  observation  is  needed  to  show  that  the  greatest 
part  of  the  habitual  acts  which  we  perform  daily  are 
strictly  automatic,  and  that  the  stimuli  which  excite  them 
are  sensational.  Let  it  be  noted,  moreover,  that  these 
sensations  act  in  their  capacity  of  representative  signs : 
assuredly  we  do  not  perceive  all  the  qualities  of  the 
objects  in  reference  to  which  we  act ;  but  one  sensation, 
most  commonly  that  of  sight,  serving  as  a  sign  of  former 
perceptions,  is  sufficient  to  excite  the  appropriate  move- 
ments. Here,  indeed,  we  have  the  exact  analogy  of  an 
instinctive  act  in  an  animal,  the  only  difference  being 
that  in  man  has  been  acquired  by  education  what  in  it 
has  been  inherited.  When  any  one  moves  about  in  a 
house  or  room  with  the  arrangements  in  which  he  is 
quite  familiar,  he  is  scarcely  more  conscious  of  the 
objects  around  him  and  of  the  greater  part  of  his 


230  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

movements  than  he  is  of  his  movements  of  breathing  or 
of  his  particular  steps  in  walking ;  notwithstanding  which, 
he  does  not  run  against  the  chairs  nor  stumble  against  the 
stairs,  but  fairly  adapts  his  movements  to  the  position 
and  forms  of  the  objects.  But  if  some  new  piece  of  fur- 
niture be  put  in  a  part  of  the  room  where  there  was 
nothing  before,  or  if  some  old  piece  of  furniture  have  its 
figure  changed, — if  an  additional  leaf,  for  instance,  be 
placed  in  the  table — the  chances  are  that  he  does  stumble 
against  it  for  a  while,  until,  by  familiarity  or  habit,  the 
new  sensation  has  taken  its  proper  place  in  the  organic 
groupings  of  former  sensations  and  been  associated  with 
corresponding  movements. 

The  sensory  stimuli  of  the  objects  to  which  we  are 
thoroughly  accustomed  affect  us  unconsciously,  or 
nearly  so ;  we  see  them,  so  to  speak,  without  perceiv- 
ing them,  if  we  are  used  to  them,  when  we  are  in 
such  a  state  of  abstraction  that  we  should  not  see  them 
at  all,  and  we  should  not  be  affected  by  the  stimuli  of 
them,  if  we  were  not  used  to  them.  Perhaps  the  most 
striking  illustration  of  automatic  action  is  furnished  by 
the  monotonous  processes  of  dressing  and  undressing 
which  we  have  the  trouble  to  go  through  every  morning 
and  night  of  our  lives.  One  operation  follows  another 
in  mechanical  sequence,  while  consciousness  is  absorbed 
in  some  train  of  thought,  and  it  is  only  when  something 
has  occurred  to  interrupt  the  habitual  sequence  of  acts,  or 
when  our  attention  has  been  aroused  in  some  other  way, 
that  we  become  conscious  in  what  an  automatic  fashion  we 
are  proceeding.  The  successive  sensations  do  duty  for 
perceptions,  and  arouse  the  movements  which  are  or- 
ganically linked  to  them.  So  customary  is  it  to  wind  up 
one's  watch  after  taking  it  out  of  the  waistcoat  pocket  on 
going  to  bed,  that  it  must  have  happened  to  many  persons 
to  have  on  some  occasions  wound  up  their  watch  without 
intending  it,  indeed  quite  unconsciously,  when  changing 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  231 

their  waistcoats  in  order  to  dress  for  dinner ;  and  I  have 
known  a  person  to  go  so  far  as  to  put  on  his  nightshirt 
instead  of  a  clean  shirt  under  the  same  circumstances. 
Again,  it  has  sometimes  happened  that,  when  the  mind 
has  been  deeply  interested  in  a  train  of  thought,  a  person 
has  walked  from  one  place  to  another  through  streets 
busy  with  the  turmoil  of  traffic  and  the  coming  and  going 
of  men,  and  yet  been  unable,  on  reflecting  afterwards, 
to  say  positively  along  which  of  two  streets  he  came, 
though  he  has  undoubtedly  had  what  may  be  called 
sensory  perception  of  the  persons  and  objects  which 
he  has  avoided  in  his  walk. 

Many  other  instances  of  a  like  nature  might  be  easily 
adduced,  but  I  shall  content  myself  with  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  firm  association  which  is  established  by 
education  between  particular  sounds,  or  particular  visual 
sensations,  and  the  adapted  complex  movements  for 
the  articulation  of  the  appropriate  words.  Children 
plainly  exhibit  a  tendency  to  imitate  a  particular  sound, 
when  there  is  certainly  not  yet  any  idea  of  what 
the  sound  means;  and,  as  every  one  knows,  it  is  easy 
enough  to  read  aloud  without  paying  the  least  atten- 
tion to  the  meaning  of  what  is  read,  the  consciousness 
being  otherwise  engaged.  Dr.  Radcliffe  relates  how  he 
once  knew  a  bright  little  English  girl,  about  five  and  a 
half  years  of  age,  who  could  speak  English,  French,  and 
German  with  equal  readiness.  If  spoken  to  in  English, 
she  invariably  answered  in  English ;  if  in  French,  she 
always  answered  in  French  ;  and  if  in  German,  always  in 
German.  When  addressed  in  one  language,  and  urged 
to  reply  in  one  of  the  other  languages  which  she  under- 
stood, she  could  not  do  so,  and  if  pressed  beyond  a 
certain  point  burst  into  tears  :  a  good  and  obedient 
child,  she  could  not  be  coaxed,  bribed,  or  urged  to 
reply  in  a  different  language  from  that  in  which  she  was 
addressed.  Dr.  Radcliffe's  attention  was  called  to  the 


232  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

fact  by  the  governess,  an  intelligent  person,  who  could 
not  account  for  what  appeared  so  singular  an  act  of 
disobedience.  The  child  died  when  she  was  about 
eleven  years  old  from  some  affection  of  the  brain,  which 
was  supposed  to  have  been  brought  on  by  over-educa- 
tion.* There  was  no  doubt  that  the  child  connected 
definite  ideas  with  the  words  used  in  the  questions  put 
and  the  replies  made ;  but  the  fact  that  it  could  not  put 
the  same  ideas  into  another  language  than  that  in  which 
it  was  addressed,  showed  the  dominion  exercised  by  the 
sound  over  the  articulating  movements — the  mechanical 
connection  established  between  them.  Three  special 
sounds  were  adapted  to  excite  one  idea,  which  was 
capable  of  expression  in  three  special  movements  of 
speech,  having  in  fact  its  three  special  tracks  through  the 
brain ;  but  the  special  sound  in  each  case,  acting  in  its 
character  of  sign  or  excito-motor  stimulus  of  the  idea, 
compelled  the  movement  to  which  it  had  been  organi- 
cally linked  by  education.!  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
point  out  that  language,  difficult  as  it  is  of  acquisition, 
ultimately  gets  all  the  unconscious  facility  of  a  reflex  act ; 
experience  proving  too  well  that  many  waste  floods  of 
vain  words  are  poured  forth  without  fatigue  by  some  who, 
like  officious  Peter  proposing  to  build  three  tabernacles, 
know  not  what  they  say.  Assuredly  consciousness  is 
not  an  essential  accompaniment  of  speech,  which  may 
be  conscious,  sub-conscious,  or  entirely  unconscious. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  true  conceptions  of 
mental  function  that  the  full  meaning  and  real  bearing 

*  Man  Trans-Corporeal.    Contemporary  Revifiv,  December  1874. 

t  Narcisse  Palletier,  a  Frenchman,  who  had  lived  so  long  among 
savages  as  to  have  forgotten  his  own  language,  soon  recovered  it, 
and  forgot  his  savage  language,  when  he  was  rescued.  The  old 
sounds,  when  once  remembered,  soon  excited  the  old  movements 
to  which  they  were  linked  ;  no  doubt,  if  he  had  fallen  again  among 
savages,  he  would  soon  have  recovered  their  language  when  he 
heard  the  sounds  of  their  words. 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  233 

of  the  foregoing  facts  should  be  distinctly  realized.  When 
the  sensation  excites  an  acquired  sensori-motor  act,  we 
must  suppose  that  it  does  so  by  virtue  of  the  acquired 
nature  of  itself  and  of  its  sensory  nerve-centre ;  that, 
in  fact,  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  acquired  nature  that  an 
object,  which  has  been  known  by  perception,  is  capable 
of  acting  merely  as  the  sensory  excito-motor  stimulus  of 
adapted  movements.  For  we  can  hardly  suppose  in  such 
case  that  the  molecular  current  excited  by  the  stimulus 
ascends  from  the  sensory  ganglion  to  the  higher  cerebral 
centres,  and  descends  from  them  to  act  upon  the  motor 
ganglia,  or  that,  having  so  ascended,  it  re-acts  upon  the 
sensory  ganglion  and  then  passes  to  the  connected  motor 
ganglia.  One  of  these  events,  no  doubt,  is  what  happens 
when  there  is  a  distinct  perception  of  the  object,  but  it 
is  a  superfluous  and  improbable  journey  to  make  when 
the  object  is  not  really  perceived,  and  when  one  quality 
of  it,  signifying,  if  we  choose  to  attend  or  to  per- 
ceive it,  all  its  other  qualities,  excites  a  sensation  which 
acts  in  its  artiBcial  character  of  a  sign  of  the  perception 
— by  virtue,  that  is,  of  the  acquired  nature  of  its  nerve- 
centre.  Moreover,  notwithstanding  the  intimate  struc- 
tural and  functional  relations  between  sensory  and  cere- 
bral centres,  the  supposition  of  an  ascent  of  motion  to 
the  latter  is  opposed  to  what  we  have  learnt  concerning 
the  instinctive  acts  of  animals,  and  concerning  the 
sensori-motor  acts  of  animals  which  have  been  deprived 
of  their  hemispheres.  These  last  experiments,  if  they 
have  been  rightly  interpreted,  seem  indeed  to  be  decisive 
against  the  argument  of  an  ascent. 

It  is  necessary  to  be  constantly  on  our  guard  to  pre- 
vent physiological  conceptions  of  mental  phenomena 
from  being  overruled  or  vitiated  by  psychological  terms. 
Sensation  is  not,  as  the  psychological  use  of  the  word 
might  seem  to  imply,  a  certain  inborn  faculty  of  constant 
quantity,  but  a  general  term  embracing  a  multitude  of 


Z34  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

particular  phenomena  that  exhibit  every  degree  of  varia- 
tion both  in  quantity  and  quality.  Simple  as  a  sensation 
appears,  it  is  in  reality  infinitely  compound,  being  formed 
by  a  fusion  of  elements.  A  simple  tone  is  one  which  is 
caused  by  a  combination  of  simple  wave-forms ;  a  ray 
of  light  is  notably  a  very  complex  affair;  and  even 
our  perception  of  colour  is  an  induction.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  all  our  sensations  of  colour  are  com- 
pounded of  three  elementary  modes  of  sensation — red, 
green,  and  violet ;  Helmholtz  adopting  Young's  hypo- 
thesis, that  there  are  three  classes  of  optic-fibres  distri- 
buted pretty  equally  over  the  surface  of  the  retina,  which 
answer  to  the  undulations  of  these  colours,  in  other 
words,  which  minister  to  these  three  modes  of  sensation. 
The  purest  coloured  light  of  the  spectrum  excites 
more  than  one  class  of  fibres,  so  that  our  common 
sensations  of  colour  are  never  pure  elementary  feelings  ; 
the  red  rays,  though  they  affect  most  powerfully  the 
fibres  sensitive  to  red,  affecting  in  a  less  degree  the 
other  two  classes  of  fibres.  If  these  are  incapacitated 
by  allowing  the  eye  to  rest  for  a  time  on  the  comple- 
mentary colour  and  so  exhausting  them,  and  if  the  eye 
be  then  turned  to  the  required  colour,  a  much  purer 
colour  is  obtained.  Whether  there  are  really  three  sets 
of  fibres,  or  whether  the  three  colours  are  produced  by 
different  excitations  of  the  same  fibres,  matters  not ;  they 
are  still  complex.  It  has  been  discovered  that  ordinary 
sounds  consist  in  like  manner  of  complex  aggregates  of 
undulations  of  different  pitches.  We  perceive,  then, 
that  sensations  which  seem  elementary  to  consciousness 
are  actually  compound,  and  learn  furthermore  that  no 
amount  of  skill  in  subjective  analysis  could  ever  have 
given  us  the  least  conception  of  their  complex  nature. 

If  a  sensation  which  seems  to  be  elementary  is  thus 
complex,  how  much  more  complex  must  be  the  acquired 
sensation  which  is  gradually  matured  in  the  proper 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  235 

nervous  centres  from  the  residua  or  traces  which  previous 
sensations  of  a  like  kind  have  left  behind  them ;  the 
sensation  of  a  cultivated  sense  thus  summing  up,  as 
it  were,  a  thousand  experiences,  as  one  word  often  sums 
up  the  accumulated  acquisitions  of  generations  of  men. 
Education  can  assuredly  improve  every  sense  we  have 
in  a  remarkable  manner.  An  experiment  by  Volkmann 
has  shown  that  when  the  finger  or  any  limited  portion  of 
skin  on  one  side  of  the  body  is  frequently  experimented 
upon  with  the  compasses,  in  order  to  test  the  degree  of 
sensibility,  its  tactile  sensibility  is  thereby  increased  above 
the  level  of  that  of  the  adjacent  parts;  and  what  is 
more  remarkable  is,  that  the  sensibility  of  the  symmetri- 
cal portion  of  skin  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  body  will 
be  found  to  have  been  also  rendered  more  acute.  In- 
stances of  improved  sensibility  of  smell,  taste,  and  hear- 
ing are  too  familiar  to  need  mention. 

A  patient  and  thorough  study  of  the  phenomena  of 
vision  is  no  doubt  best  suited  to  show  how  composite  a 
product  a  mature  sensation  really  is,  for  it  will  show  that 
in  the  education  of  sight  there  is  a  gradual  transformation 
of  elementary  sensations  into  what  finally  stand  for  simple 
intuitions  of  the  mind  :  the  cultivated  visual  sensation  of 
an  object  really  being  a  complex  sensori-motor  process 
which  represents  an  implicit  judgment  of  its  distance, 
magnitude,  and  direction.  The  experience  of  those  who, 
having  been  born  blind,  have  afterwards  gained  sight, 
proves  that  an  object  seen  for  the  first  time  seems  actually 
to  touch  the  globe  of  the  eye,  and  is  not  recognised,  if 
it  be  even  distinguished  as  an  object ;  not  the  least 
information  is  given  concerning  its  form,  size,  and 
situation  ;  the  information  which  cultivated  sight  gives 
has  been  added  unto  it  by  education,  and  is  a  pro- 
duct of  its  acquired  nature.  As  Berkeley  aptly  says, 
vision  is  a  language  speaking  to  the  eye,  which  we  are 
not  conscious  of  having  learned,  because  we  have  been 


«36  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

learning  it  ever  since  we  were  born,  whenever  our  eyes 
are  open  in  the  light  (3). 

The  fact  is,  that  we  do  not  see,  hear,  or  othenvise 
feel  by  sense  the  object  itself,  and  have  no  guarantee 
that  what  we  feel  has  any  resemblance  to  the  object ; 
what  we  feel  is  the  effect  that  is  produced  in  the 
nerve  centre  by  the  external  stimulus,  an  effect  which 
must  needs  contain  the  complex  results  of  the  experience 
embodied  in  the  acquired  or  differentiated  nature  of  the 
nerve-circuit ;  and  if  the  sensori-motor  current  were  ex- 
cited in  exactly  the  same  way  by  an  internal  cause,  no 
external  object  being  present,  we  should  have  exactly  the 
same  feeling  of  it,  just  as  dreamers  and  madmen  have. 
Innate  in  the  constitution  of  the  different  ganglionic 
centres  is  a  specific  power  of  reaction  to  certain  im- 
pressions made  upon  organs  that  are  specially  adapted 
to  receive  them ;  but  as  the  waste  following  activity  is 
restored  by  nutrition,  and  a  structural  modification  is 
thus  embodied  in  the  constitution  of  the  nervous  centre, 
becoming  more  complete  and  definite  with  each  succeed- 
ing impression,  it  comes  to  pass  that  an  acquired  nature 
is  gradually  grafted  on  the  original  nature  of  the  nerve- 
centres,  and  that  the  sensation  gains  infinitely  in  com- 
plexity. 

The  idea  to  be  formed  and  fixed  in  the  mind  from  a 
consideration  of  the  phenomena  of  the  development  of 
sensation,  and  necessary  to  their  proper  interpretation, 
as  indeed  to  the  interpretation  of  every  manifestation  of 
life,  is  the  idea  of  organization.  The  mind  is  not  like  a 
sheet  of  white  paper  which  receives  just  what  is  written 
upon  it,  nor  like  a  mirror  which  simply  reflects  more  or 
less  faithfully  every  object,  but  by  it  is  connoted  a  plastic 
power  ministering  to  a  complex  process  of  organization, 
in  which  what  is  suitable  to  development  is  assimilated, 
what  is  unsuitable  is  rejected.  By  the  appropriation  of 
the  like  in  impressions  made  upon  the  senses  we  acquire 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  237 

a  sensation,  of  which  we  might  speak,  as  we  do  when 
speaking  of  idea,  as  general  or  abstract ;  there  is  a  sort  of 
organic  classification  ;  and  there  exists  henceforth,  latent 
or  potential,  in  the  sensor)'  centres,  something  that  may 
be  called  a  faculty,  which  on  the  occasion  of  the  appro- 
priate impression  renders  the  sensation  clear  and  definite 
— in  other  words,  gives  the  interpretation.  It  is  exactly 
like  what  happens  in  the  spinal  centres,  and  exactly  like 
what  happens,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  in  the  supreme 
cerebral  centres.  Coincident  with  the  assimilation  of 
the  like  in  impressions,  there  is  necesssarily  a  rejection 
of  the  unlike,  which,  being  then  appropriated  by  other 
nerve  tracts,  becomes  the  foundation,  or  lays  the  basis, 
of  the  faculty  of  another  sensation,  just  as  nutrient  mate- 
rial which  is  not  taken  up  by  one  kind  of  tissue  element 
is  assimilated  by  another  kind.  In  the  education  of  the 
senses,  then,  there  takes  place  a  differentiation  of  cells — 
in  other  words,  a  discernment,  as  well  as  an  improvement 
of  the  faculty  of  each  kind  of  sensation  by  the  blending 
of  similar  residua.  There  is  an  analysis  separating  the 
unlike,  a  synthesis  blending  the  like ;  and  by  the  two  pro- 
cesses of  assimilation  and  discrimination  our  sensations 
are  gradually  formed  and  developed.  The  process  illus- 
trates the  increasing  speciality  of  individual  adaptation 
to  external  nature ;  and  the  length  of  childhood  in  man 
is  in  relation  to  the  formation  of  his  complex  sensations. 
Thus  much  concerning  sensation  and  sensori-motor 
action.  It  is  a  hard  matter  for  those  who  take  the  psy- 
chological view  of  mind  to  realize  the  firm  organic  con- 
nection that  is  established  between  the  sensory  stimulus 
and  its  proper  movements — the  feeling  and  the  act — 
whereby  these  finally  become  as  automatic  as  the  motions 
of  a  clock's  hands.  When  they  observe  an  end  to  be 
accomplished  they  fail  not  to  fly  incontinently  to  the 
notion  of  design.  The  act,  with  whatsoever  design  it  dis- 
plays, is  the  necessary  result  of  a  certain  constitution, 


238  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

innate  or  acquired,  of  the  nervous  centres,  and  is  not 
dependent  either  upon  volition  or  consciousness.  Whe- 
ther consciousness  exists  or  not  as  an  accompaniment, 
is  another  question ;  automatism  does  not  necessarily 
exclude  consciousness;  and  it  is  certainly  conceivable 
that  some  animals  are  conscious  automata,  and  that, 
though  acting  with  mechanical  necessity,  they  feel 
pleasure  or  suffer  pain  in  doing  what  they  do.  Those 
persons  go  far  beyond  this  supposition,  however,  who 
assume  that  the  nervous  centres  of  man  or  animal,  when 
performing  automatically  a  series  of  co-ordinate  move- 
ments, possess  a  notion  of  the  end  which  they  effect,  or 
display  any  degree  of  intelligence  and  volition.  They 
probably  possess  no  more  of  such  notion  than  the  ele- 
ments of  a  chemical  compound  have  of  the  end  which 
they  accomplish  when  they  combine,  or  than  the  wind 
has  when  it  bloweth  where  it  listeth ;  *  and  accordingly 
they  do  not  fail  sometimes,  under  conditions  of  disease, 
to  make  terrible  mistakes,  and  to  cause  much  suffering 
to  and  perhaps  miserably  to  kill  the  individual  by  con- 
tinuing violently  reflex  actions  the  cessation  of  which 
was  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  life.  Even  so  philo- 
sophical a  writer  as  Mu'ller  inferred  that  the  sensory 
centres  were  endowed  with  some  degree  of  voluntary 
power,  because  of  the  remarkable  actions  to  which  they 
minister ;  thus  introducing  into  his  observation,  and 
applying  to  his  interpretation,  of  the  functions  of  the 
secondary  nervous  centres  conceptions  derived  from  his 

*  "  Whoever  will  examine  the  language  of  mankind,  may  find 
that  we  apply  expressions  to  bodies  which  belong  properly  to  our 
own  manner  of  proceeding  ;  and,  how  well  soever  we  know  the 
contrary,  speak  of  them  as  voluntary  agents,  exercising  powers  of 
their  own  ;  thus  it  is  said  that  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
we  say  of  water  that  it  will  not  mingle  with  oil,  that  it  will  force 
its  way,  &c,  :  terms  expressive  of  a  choice,  compliance,  and  resolu- 
tion similar  to  those  exercised  by  man." — TUCKER'S  Light  of  Nature, 
voL  ii.  p.  545. 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  239 

knowledge  of  the  functions  of  the  higher  or  primary 
centres.  This  was  surely  to  reverse  the  natural  order 
of  inquiry,  and  to  apply  the  complex  and  obscure  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  simple,  instead  of  ascending  by  in- 
ductive steps  to  use  the  simple  in  order  to  disentangle 
the  complex.  The  before-mentioned  experiments  upon 
the  frog's  spinal  cord  prove  that  movements  seemingly 
purposive  may  be  purely  automatic  :  why  then  introduce 
a  new  agency,  derived  from  experience  of  the  highest 
cerebral  centres,  in  order  to  account  for  sensori-motor 
functions  which,  though  more  complex  than,  are  of  the 
same  character  as,  those  of  the  spinal  cord  ? 

The  answer  which  I  conceive  it  probable  may  be  made 
is  this — because  the  sensory  centres  are  intermediate  in 
structural  position  and  physiological  dignity  between  the 
spinal  and  the  supreme  cerebral  centres,  and  may  be 
expected,  while  exhibiting  reflex  functions  like  those  of 
the  spinal  cord,  to  exhibit  also  the  rudiments  of  func- 
tions which  attain  their  special  development  in  the 
cerebral  convolutions.  They  are  more  special  and  com- 
plex in  structure  than  the  spinal  centres,  receiving  and 
co-ordinating  a  greater  variety  of  impressions,  and  it 
may  be  argued  that  they  possess  not  only  some  degree 
of  consciousness  but  the  germs  of  intelligence  and 
volition.  At  any  rate,  if  it  be  not  so  in  man,  there  is 
evidence  that  it  may  be  so  in  some  of  the  lower  animals. 
It  would  appear  that  the  ant  and  the  bee,  which  have  no 
higher  nervous  centres  than  sensory  ganglia,  and  in  which 
the  functions  of  these  centres  reach  a  remarkable  perfec- 
tion, are  not  simply  organised  machines  that  operate 
with  unvarying  regularity  and  are  destitute  of  any  power 
of  shaping  their  acts  to  new  experiences ;  on  the  con- 
trary, observation  shows  that  these  creatures  do  some- 
times discover  in  their  actions  indications  of  a  sensibility 
to  strange  experiences  and  of  corresponding  adaptations 
of  movements.  Take  Huber's  account  of  the  humble- 


«40  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

bees  which  he  put  under  a  bell-glass  along  with  a  comb 
which  was  of  such  a  shape  as  not  to  be  capable  of  stand- 
ing steadily.  Two  or  three  of  the  bees  got  upon  the 
comb,  and,  stretching  themselves  over  its  edge  with  their 
heads  downwards,  fixed  their  fore-feet  on  the  table,  so  as 
to  make  themselves  props  and  to  prevent  the  comb  from 
falling.  When  they  were  tired,  others  took  their  places, 
and  the  series  of  reliefs  went  on  for  nearly  three  days, 
until  the  bees  had  prepared  sufficient  wax  to  build  pillars 
of  support.  Moreover,  when  the  first  pillars  were  dis- 
placed, they  had  recourse  to  the  same  operations  in  order 
to  rebuild  them.  We  could  scarcely  have  a  more  striking 
instance  of  an  apparent  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end 
according  to  varying  circumstances.  And  I  know  not 
how  those  who  would  attribute  such  appropriate  action 
to  instinct  can  distinguish  it  from  understanding,  even  if 
it  be  assumed  that  similar  experiences  must  at  some  time 
have  occurred  to  the  race  of  bees.  After  all,  it  is  only 
a  manifestation  of  a  power  of  adapting  acts  to  circum- 
stances by  which  we  must  suppose,  and  Mr.  Darwin  has 
shown  it  to  be  probable,  that  bees  have  gradually  ac- 
quired their  wonderful  instincts,  and  which  at  bottom  is 
a  property  of  nervous  tissue,  if  not  of  organic  substance.* 
The  power  is  evidently  of  a  rudimentary  kind  in  bees, 
and  must  remain  so  in  creatures  that  have  not  the  higher 
nerve  centres  in  which  sensations  are  combined  into 
ideas,  perceptions  of  the  relations  of  things  thus  ac- 
quired, and  acts  purposely  shaped  in  consequence  to 

*  Mr.  Wallace  has  broached  and  upheld  the  opinion  that  bees 
and  ants  do  not  act  without  instruction  and  blindly.  He  thinks 
that  birds  build  their  nests,  as  men  build  their  houses,  from  obser- 
vation, memory,  and  imitation,  using  the  material  which  each  kind 
can  most  readily  obtain,  and  building  in  situations  most  congenial 
s  habits.  Indeed,  he  asserts  that  "  the  peculiar  notes  of  birds 
are  acquired  by  imitation,  as  surely  as  a  child  learns  English  or 
French,  not  by  instinct,  but  by  hearing  the  language  spoken  by  its 
parents." 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES,  241 

accomplish  ends  whether  the  circumstances  are  changed 
or  not  But  because  bees  have  possessed,  and  still  pos- 
sess, this  rudimentary  understanding,  which  differs  in 
simplicity  rather  than  in  kind  from  human  understand- 
ing, it  does  not  follow  that  the  sensory  ganglia  of  man 
are  endowed  with  similar  rudimentary  functions.  On 
the  contrary,  it  might  be  argued  that  as  higher  nervous 
centres  are  differentiated  in  the  course  of  evolution, 
functions  are  localised  in  them  which  were  more  gene- 
rally diffused  in  the  lower  animals,  not  otherwise  than  as 
the  fore  limbs  in  man,  which  in  the  ape  and  some  other 
animals  serve  both  for  grasping  and  walking,  are  special- 
ised in  structure  and  function  as  prehensile  organs.  In 
the  absence  then  of  positive  evidence  of  intelligence  and 
voluntary  power  in  the  sensory  ganglia  of  man,  it  is  a 
scarcely  warrantable  assumption  to  endow  them  even 
with  the  rudiments  of  these  functions.* 

But  it  is  impossible  to  feel  an  equal  assurance  when 
the  question  is  made  one  not  of  the  existence  of  intel- 
ligence and  will,  but  of  the  existence  of  consciousness 
in  the  sensory  centres.  Three  considerations  occur  to 
the  mind  in  reference  to  this  question.  The  first  is, 
that  in  the  higher  animals  properties  are  localised  in 
particular  organs  which  in  lower  animals  are  diffused 
throughout  the  organism  ;  and  while  this  may  be  used  as 
an  argument  in  favour  of  the  supposition  that  conscious- 
ness is  entirely  limited  to  the  cerebral  hemispheres  in 
man,  it  certainly  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  its 
existence  in  the  sensory  centres.  For  it  may  well  be 

*  Unless,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  we  take  all  heart  of 
meaning  out  of  the  word  volition,  by  calling  the  adaptive  power  of 
organic  element  by  the  name.  After  referring  to  Spallanzani's 
observations  on  polypes,  Prochaska  says — "  From  these  and  other 
facts  it  is  manifest  that  these  infusory  animalcules  feel,  and  have 
volition,  and  possess  the  character  of  the  true  animal  ;  consequently, 
they  are  endowed  with  a  sentient  and  volitional  principle,  howevei 
destitute  they  may  be  of  a  nervous  system." 


242  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

that  organs  which  are  only  a  little  lower  in  dignity  than 
the  supreme  cerebral  centres,  which  are  essential  to  the 
development  of  their  function,  and  which  are  in  such 
intimate  functional  relation  with  them  throughout  life 
that  a  functional  separation  appears  to  be  pure  abstrac- 
tion, do  possess  that  property  which  is  most  highly, 
but  not  exclusively,  developed  in  the  higher  centres. 

Secondly,  it  admits  of  no  doubt  that  consciousness  is 
not  a  constant  quantity,  but  that  there  are  gradations  of 
consciousness  from  its  most  vivid  manifestations  through 
stages  of  lessening  subconsciousness  down  to  actual  un- 
consciousness. It  may  well  be  then  that  the  sensory 
centres  possess  it  in  a  less  degree  than  the  centres  above 
them.  The  plain  proof  that  they  do  possess  it,  some 
might  argue,  is  that  we  feel  pain  when  we  are  hurt ;  and 
that  the  pain  is  felt  in  a  sensory  centre  is  further  proved 
by  experiments  on  animals  which  cry  out  when  they  are 
hurt,  after  their  cerebral  hemispheres  have  been  re- 
moved. The  argument,  however,  is  by  no  means  con- 
clusive. In  the  first  place,  we  have  no  proof  that  the 
animals  feel  the  pain  ;  all  we  know  is  that  they  cry  out 
as  if  they  felt  it;  and  if  we  may  trust  our  inferences  from 
other  experiments  on  animals  and  from  observations  of 
men  under  chloroform  and  in  comatose  states,  we  must 
admit  that  the  cry  may  be  purely  a  reflex  act.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  ever  are  conscious 
of  a  sensation  without  perceiving,  whether  in  fact  we  can 
have  consciousness  of  a  pure  sensation:  when  we  say 
we  feel  it,  we  feel  it  in  a  particular  part  of  the  body;  and 
what  is  that  but  to  perform  internally  a  sensori-motor  act 
and  to  recognise  more  or  less  clearly  its  where,  in  other 
words,  to  perceive  it  according  to  forms  of  space  ?  We 
infer  the  existence  of  simple  sensations  out  of  which 
ideas  are  formed  by  a  mental  synthesis,  but  it  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  a  consciousness  of  them  does  not  imply 
that  our  higher  cerebral  centres  have  come  into  play 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  243 

and  that  we  are  exercising  perception.  To  adopt  the 
metaphysical  theory  which  has  been  broached  by  some 
psychologists,  that  the  organism  in  its  relation  to  per- 
ception belongs  neither  to  the  ego  nor  to  the  non-ego, 
but  occupies  an  intermediate  position  between  them,  is 
to  dupe  ourselves  with  vain  words,  which  do  not  carry 
us  a  step  farther  towards  an  understanding  of  the  facts  ; 
whether  we  accept  it  or  not,  the  problem  remains  just 
what  it  was. 

The  third  consideration  is,  that  although  the  cere- 
bral centres,  as  representing  the  highest  and  most  com- 
plex co-ordination  of  functions,  are  undoubtedly  the  seat 
of  clear  consciousness,  of  the  individual's  conscious- 
ness as  an  (go,  the  sensory  centres  may  still  be  conscious 
after  a  fashion  of  their  own,  and  may  send  their  un- 
perceived  contributions  to  make  up  the  sum  of  that 
general  consciousness  which  is  the  consciousness  of  the 
(go.  This  theory  of  an  unconscious  consciousness  1 
have  already  discussed,  and  I  need  say  no  more  about 
it  now.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that 
while  many  plausible  arguments  may  be  brought  forward 
on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other,  we  have  not  the  data 
to  warrant  us  in  deciding  positively  whether  conscious- 
ness, or,  if  any,  what  sort  of  consciousness,  is  a  property 
of  the  sensory  ganglia,  and  that  the  question  must  for 
the  present  remain  open. 

One  reflection  we  may  profitably  educe  from  the  dis- 
cussion, before  passing  from  the  subject — namely,  how 
artificial  and  unwarranted  is  the  absolute  division  which 
is  made  between  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious, 
between  psychology  and  physiology.  Notwithstanding 
that  nature  everywhere  reveals  the  law  of  continuity,  and 
notwithstanding  that  the  progress  of  knowledge  has  been 
a  history  of  the  breaking  down  of  arbitrary  divisions  in 
knowledge  where  none  existed  in  nature,  we  still  go  on 
to  make  nature  conform  to  our  divisions,  and  as  soon  as 


244  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

we  are  driven  from  one  artificial  barrier  flee  for  refuge 
to  another  and  insist  on  holding  that  at  any  cost  All 
creation's  endless  changes  proclaim  the  continuity  and 
the  becoming  of  things  :  man  proclaims  the  divisions  of 
science  and  the  immutability  of  knowledge.  How  much 
idle  discussion  would  have  been  saved  in  times  past, 
and  would  be  prevented  in  times  to  come,  had  the 
true  lesson  been  taken  to  heart !  When  it  was  found 
out  that  the  earth  was  not  fixed  and  immovable,  men 
opposed  the  new  doctrine  as  if  all  their  faith  and  hope 
depended  upon  their  holding  fast  to  the  old  and  false 
doctrine  which  they  had  so  long  cherished;  when  the 
geologists  announced  that  the  surface  of  the  earth  had 
been  undergoing  continuous  changes  through  the  ages,  the 
mountains  having  been  built  up  and  the  valleys  scooped 
out  by  natural  agencies,  and  the  sea  having  become  dry 
land  and  the  dry  land  sea,  the  new  doctrine  was  opposed 
with  might  and  main ;  and  now  that  in  this  day  and  gene- 
ration it  has  been  all  but  proved  that  the  species  of 
living  things  are  not  immutable  creations,  but  have  been 
formed  by  the  gradual  operation  of  natural  causes  through 
successions  of  ages,  there  is  the  same  angry  opposition 
made  to  the  new  doctrine,  and  the  same  passionate  cling- 
ing to  the  old  doctrine  of  fixedness  is  displayed.  When 
a  new  and  great  truth  is  discovered,  men  too  often  act 
as  if  the  earth  were  giving  way  beneath  their  trembling 
feet  and  heaven  vanishing  from  their  longing  gaze,  when 
it  is  merely  the  fabric  of  their  ideas  which  is  giving  way, 
and  when  they  ought  to  set  earnestly  to  work  to  re- 
construct it. 

Has  not  the  time  come  when  we  may  justly  ask 
ourselves  whether  there  really  is  so  great  a  gulf  fixed 
as  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  assume  between  brain  and 
mind  ?  It  may  be  worth  while  at  any  rate  to  adopt  by 
way  of  experiment  the  theory  that  consciousness,  though 
the  usual,  is  not  the  indispensable  accompaniment 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  245 

of  mental  function  —  a  constant  concomitant,  if  you 
will,  but  not  an  essential  factor  —  and  that  all  the 
operations  which  are  considered  mental  and  to  belong 
to  psychology  may  be  performed  as  pure  functions  of 
the  nervous  system,  without  consciousness  giving  evi- 
dence of  them  or  having  any  part  in  them  ;  and  then  to 
observe  how  far  the  theory  will  throw  light  upon  the 
phenomena  of  the  menial  life.  Reasoning  would  go  on 
as  before  in  that  case,  only  there  would  be  no  inner 
sense  of  it,  What  appears  to  the  outer  senses  as 
physical  law  appears  to  the  inner  sense  of  consciousness 
as  logical  necessity ;  they  are  two  aspects  of  the  same 
fact ;  were  consciousness  suspended  or  abolished,  the  fact 
and  the  function  would  remain  though  the  logical  cogni- 
tion was  lost ;  the  physiological  mechanism  would  per- 
form its  work  whether  its  process  and  results  appealed  to 
the  inner  sense  of  consciousness  or  not,  just  as  it  would 
do  whether  it  was  watched  or  not  by  the  outer  senses 
of  another  person.  To  ascribe  to  consciousness  an  active 
part  as  cause  in  the  cognition  of  a  logical  necessity  is 
therefore  no  less  absurd  than  it  would  be  to  ascribe  to 
the  outer  senses  of  a  scientific  observer  an  active  part  in 
the  causation  of  the  physical  law  which  they  are  making 
known  to  him.  Whatever  else  may  be  thought,  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  too  much  has  been  made  of  con- 
sciousness in  times  past,  and  that  instead  of  mental  phe- 
nomena revolving  round  it  as  the  sun  of  the  system,  it 
is  rather  a  sort  of  satellite  of  mind — the  indicator  which 
makes  known  what  is  being  done,  not  the  agent  in 
doing  it. 

Let  us  suppose  that  one  half  of  the  brain  may  suffice 
to  do  all  our  mental  work,  as  there  is  some  reason  to 
believe  it  may,  and  let  us  make  the  purely  hypothetical 
supposition  that  the  other  half  serves,  by  reason  of  its 
intimate  communion  and  sympathy  with  it,  to  make  us 
conscious  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  working  half; 
12 


246  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  that  something  might 
occur  to  interrupt  close  intercommunion  between  the 
two  halves,  in  which  case  it  is  plain  that  mental  func- 
tions would  go  on  without  consciousness.  That  the 
division  of  the  brain  into  two  halves  is  the  physiologi- 
cal condition  of  self-consciousness  may  be  an  unten- 
able hypothesis,  but  there  is  nothing  unwarrantable  in 
the  assumption  that  there  is  a  certain  unknown  action  of 
the  brain  which  is  the  condition  of  consciousness,  and 
that  this  action  may  be  suspended  without  entailing  an 
entire  or  perhaps  even  a  partial  suspension  of  those 
cerebral  functions  which,  when  conscious,  are  called 
mental.  However,  let  the  truth  concerning  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  be  what  it  may,  it  hardly  admits  of  question 
that  sensations  and  their  respondent  movements,  which 
are  accompanied  by  consciousness  when  first  experienced, 
are  gradually  organised  in  the  proper  nerve-centres, 
thus  become  automatic,  and  then  take  place  as  effectually 
without  consciousness  as  with  it. 

The  reaction  of  the  motor  ganglia  that  are  in  con- 
nection with  sensory  centres,  whether  designed  or 
undesigned,  co-ordinate  or  irregular,  may  be  excited  not 
only  by  impressions  conveyed  to  them  by  the  afferent 
nerves  of  the  senses,  and  by  the  so-called  organic  stimuli, 
but  also  by  a  stimulus  descending  from  the  cerebral 
hemispheres.  That  cerebral  activity  which  coming  from 
above  appears  in  consciousness  as  an  idea  or  an  impulse 
of  the  will,  acts  upon  the  secondary  motor  centres, 
and  calls  forth  those  movements  which  are  commonly 
reflex  to  impressions  from  without.  In  such  case  it  is 
tolerably  certain  that  the  idea  or  volitional  impulse  does 
not  act  directly  on  the  motor  nerve-fibres,  but  that  it  acts 
either  upon  the  sensory  nuclei  and  through  them  upon 
the  connected  motor  nuclei,  or,  as  is  more  probable, 
directly  upon  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  motor  nuclei,  in 
which  the  potentiality  of  the  movement  exists  latent, 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  247 

statical,  or,  as  it  were,  abstract ;  the  stimulus  from  above 
disturbing  the  organic  equilibrium,  and  releasing  or 
setting  free  the  movement  together  with  whatsoever  of 
design  there  is  in  it ;  the  same  operations  are  performed, 
and  through  the  same  instrumentality,  as  when  the  im- 
pression conveyed  by  the  afferent  nerve  from  without 
excites  the  movement  Thus  the  will  is  entirely  de- 
pendent for  its  outward  realisation  in  action  upon  that 
mechanism  of  automatic  function  which  is  gradually 
organised  in  the  subordinate  centres ;  it  cannot,  as  we 
shall  hereafter  see,  at  once  instigate  successfully  a  new 
movement,  nor  can  it  execute  any  movement  without  a 
guiding  sensation  of  some  kind :  the  cultivation  of  the 
senses,  and  the  special  adaptations  of  their  motor  re- 
actions which  are  gradually  organised,  are  necessary 
antecedents,  essential  prerequisites,  to  the  due  formation 
and  operation  of  will.  The  sensorium  commune  repre- 
sents, in  fact,  various  independent  nervous  centres,  and 
never  does  act  merely  as  a  conductor  transmitting  un- 
modified the  stimulus,  whether  this  ascend  from  without 
or  descend  from  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  Bear  this 
clearly  in  mind,  and  the  memory  of  it  will  help  to  get  rid 
of  some  difficulties,  when  we  come  to  deal  with  the  will 

It  is  not  needful  to  say  anything  here  of  the  seeming 
disproportion  between  the  amount  of  energy  expended  in 
the  answering  movement,  and  the  moderate  stimulus  to 
the  sensory  ganglia  by  which  the  movement  is  excited  ; 
inasmuch  as  what  was  said  in  this  regard  of  the  spinal 
centres  is  strictly  applicable  to  the  secondary  nervous 
centres.  A  special  inquiry  would  only  serve  here,  as 
elsewhere,  to  set  forth  needless  evidence  in  support  of 
the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  force. 

And  now  let  me  briefly  indicate  the  general  causes  of 
disorder  of  the  functions  of  the  sensory  ganglia  :  they  are 
in  the  main  such  as  have  been  already  pointed  out  to  be 
causes  of  disturbance  of  the  functions  of  the  spinal  cord : — 


248  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

i.  As  a  natural  fact,  there  may  be  an  innate  vice, 
feebleness,  or  instability  of  composition  of  the  ganglionic 
cells.  Such  fault  of  nature  is  commonly  owing  to  the 
existence  of  some  nervous  disease  in  the  hereditary  ante- 
cedents ;  but  it  may  of  course  be  due  to  any  other  of  the 
many  recondite  causes  of  degeneration  of  nerve  element. 
Hallucinations  of  vision  are  by  no  means  infrequent 
amongst  some  children  at  an  early  age,  especially  among 
such  as  suffer  from  chorea.  And  in  those  rare  cases  in 
which  insanity  occurs  in  children  soon  after  they  are 
born,  it  is  chiefly  exhibited  in  violent  and  irregular  sen- 
sori-motor  movements  ;  herein  resembling  essentially  the 
insanity  that  sometimes  ensues  in  animals.  The  un- 
natural laughter,  the  shrieking,  the  biting,  and  the  tearing 
of  the  insane  infant  assuredly  testify  to  a  degenerate  state 
of  the  motor  and  sensory  cells  in  the  sensorium  commune : 
one  might  even  venture  to  say  that  there  was  a  true 
sensorial  madness.  It  is  most  interesting  to  add  that  the 
disorder  may  alternate  with,  or  be  replaced  by,  general 
convulsions,  the  madness  ceasing  when  the  convulsions 
supervene ;  in  such  case  a  transference  of  the  disturb- 
ance from  one  system  of  nervous  centres  to  another  takes 
place. 

Again,  there  may  be  every  degree  of  deficient  sensi- 
bility down  to  actual  insensibility  of  the  ganglionic  cells 
of  the  sensory  ganglia.  It  is  obvious  that  people  differ 
naturally  in  the  acuteness  of  their  senses :  there  are  un- 
dulations of  light  to  which  one  person's  retina  is  not 
sensitive,  which  nevertheless  produce  the  sensation  of 
light  in  another  person;  and  there  are  vibrations  of 
sound  audible  to  one  person  which,  either  by  reason  of 
being  too  rapid  or  too  slow,  are  inaudible  to  another. 
Moreover,  singular  idiosyncrasies  in  regard  to  the  sus- 
ceptibility of  a  particular  sense  are  displayed  in  some  in- 
stances, one  person  being  overpowered  by  the  scent  of  a 
rose,  another  fainting  away  if  a  cat  be  concealed  in  the 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  249 

room,  and  a  third  almost  falling  into  convulsions  if  a 
piece  of  silk  be  sharply  brushed  with  the  finger.  In 
idiots  the  senses  commonly  partake  of  the  general 
stupidity,  although  a  remarkably  acute  smell  is  now  and 
then  exhibited.  The  hearing  is  frequently  defective; 
smell  is  often  imperfect,  the  olfactory  bulbs  being  insuffi- 
ciently developed ;  taste  absent  or  extremely  vitiated,  so 
that  they  will  eat  unconcerned  the  filthiest  or  the  most 
pungent  matters  ;  and  the  sensibility  of  the  skin  is  some- 
times extensively  absent,  or  it  is  generally  dull,  so  that 
they  suffer  very  little  pain  from  injuries.  The  idiots  of 
the  lowest  class  have  usually  no  other  affection  but  that 
of  hunger,  which  they  exhibit  by  unrest,  grunting,  or  the 
like ;  but  even  some  of  these  miserable  creatures  have  at 
times  attacks  of  fury,  without  evident  reason,  in  which 
they  scratch,  strike  and  bite,  as  the  insane  infant  does. 

Dulness  of  sensibility,  when  not  nearly  reaching  the 
stage  of  idiotic  degeneration,  is  of  course  unfavourable  to 
intellectual  acquisition  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  a  very 
acute  and  delicate  sensibility  is  attended  with  evils  and 
dangers  of  its  own.  In  the  former  case,  although  there 
is  a  hindrance  to  assimilation,  yet  that  which  is  appro- 
priated is  commonly  retained  with  great  persistence ;  in 
the  latter  case,  there  is  certainly  quick  reaction,  but  no 
lasting  appropriation,  and,  if  the  sensibility  is  intensified 
beyond  a  certain  point,  there  may  even  be  a  lapse  into 
that  degenerate  state  in  which,  not  the  special  sensation, 
but  pain  is  felt,  and  irregular  and  convulsive  reaction 
takes  place.  When  the  sensory  centre  is  acutely  affected, 
perception  is  incomplete  or  absent,  just  as  when  there  is 
strong  emotion  there  is  little  knowledge.  To  know  an 
object  there  must  be  little  feeling;  the  organic  sensations, 
which  are  all  feeling,  yield  no  knowledge.  It  is  of  no 
small  importance  that  these  natural  differences  in  the 
constitution  of  the  ganglionic  cells  should  be  plainly 
recognised,  for  they  unquestionably  are  at  the  root  of 


250  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAP. 

certain  differences  in  individual  character  and  intellect. 
The  direction  of  a  man's  pursuits  in  life  may  be  deter- 
mined by  the  capacity  of  a  particular  sense,  which 
naturally  selects  the  class  of  impressions  agreeable  to  it; 
and  so  determines  the  corresponding  reactions,  that  is, 
the  general  course  of  the  life-work. 

2.  An  excessive  use  of  the  senses,  without  due  inter- 
vals of  rest,  produces  exhaustion,  and,  if  continued,  actual 
degeneration  of  them  ;  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  force  ex- 
pended must  be  restored  if  the  energy  of  the  matter  is  to 
be  maintained.  A  too  powerful  impression  made  upon 
any  sense  may  also  diminish,  or  actually  destroy,  its  power 
of  reaction ;  immediate  paralysis  of  sight,  of  hearing,  or 
of  smell  has  followed  a  sudden  and  powerful  impression 
upon  the  particular  sense ;  and  if  the  paralysis  is  not 
complete,  the  sensibility  of  the  sense  for  weaker  im- 
pressions may  still  be  lowered  for  some  time.  After 
looking  at  a  green  colour  for  a  while  the  sensibility  of 
the  retina  to  green  rays  is  exhausted,  so  that  when  the 
eye  is  afterwards  directed  to  white  light  the  part  of  the 
retina  susceptible  to  the  green  elements  of  white  light  is 
unaffected,  and  a  sensation  of  the  complementary  colour, 
purple,  is  produced.  Moreover,  the  sensation  itself  may 
persist  for  a  while  after  the  cause  of  it  has  disappeared,  as 
when  an  image  of  the  sun  remains  after  we  have  ceased 
to  look  at  it,  or  the  roar  of  the  cannon  abides  in  the  ears 
after  the  firing  has  ceased.  The  molecular  vibrations 
excited  in  the  nerve-centres  continue  for  a  few  moments, 
and  subside  gradually.  Such  persistence  of  action  in  the 
ganglionic  centre  will  serve  to  convey  a  notion  of  the  con- 
dition of  things  which  exists  when  a  hallucination  has 
been  produced  by  internal  causes.  One  of  the  best 
illustrations  of  the  persistence  of  a  sensation  is  afforded 
by  the  well-known  experiment  of  rotating  a  circular  disc 
with  alternate  black  and  white  sectors.  Above  a  certain 
rate  of  rotation  there  are  no  longer  separate  impressions 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  251 

of  black  and  white,  but  a  continuous  impression  of  grey 
is  produced.  The  impression  made  upon  the  retina  by 
a  white  sector  continues  during  the  short  interval  occupied 
by  the  passage  of  the  black  sector  over  the  same  point ; 
the  result  being  the  same  as  if  the  quantity  of  light  from 
the  white  sectors  were  distributed  uniformly  over  the 
whole  surface  of  the  disk.  In  this  way  the  maximum 
duration  of  an  impression  has  been  measured. 

3.  The  state  of  the  blood  has  a  most  direct  effect 
upon  the  functions  of  the  sensory  ganglia.  Too  much 
blood,  as  is  well  known,  gives  rise  to  subjective  sensa- 
tions, such  as  flashes  of  light  before  the  eyes  and  roaring 
,-in  the  ears  ;  but  it  is  not  so  generally  known  that  when 
the  abnormal  action  reaches  a  certain  intensity,  move- 
ments responsive  to,  or  sympathetic  with,  the  hallucina- 
tions may  take  place.  N  evertheless,  they  may :  as  the 
sensory  ganglia  have  an  independent  action  in  health,  so 
also  may  they  act  independently  in  disease ;  and  as  in 
health  there  is  co-ordinate  or  designed  sensori-motor 
action,  so  in  disease  there  may  be  convulsive  sensori- 
motor  action  evincing  more  or  less  co-ordination  or 
design.  Of  violent,  but  more  or  less  co-ordinate,  action 
we  have,  I  think,  an  example  in  the  raving  and  danger- 
ous fury  which  often  follows  a  succession  of  severe 
epileptic  fits,  and  which  I  take  leave  to  describe  as  in 
the  main  a  semorial  insanity.  The  patient's  senses  are 
possessed  with  hallucinations,  his  ganglionic  central  cells 
being  in  a  state  of  what  may  be  called  convulsive  action  ; 
before  the  eyes  are  blood-red  flames  of  fire,  amidst  which 
whosoever  happens  to  present  himself  appears  as  a  devil, 
or  otherwise  horribly  transformed ;  the  ears  are  filled 
with  a  terrible  roaring  noise,  or  resound  with  a  voice 
imperatively  commanding  him  to  save  himself;  the  smell 
is  perhaps  one  of  sulphurous  stifling ;  and  the  desperate 
and  violent  actions  are  the  convulsive  reactions  to  such 
fearful  hallucinations.  The  individual  in  such  state  is  a 


252  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

sensori-motor  machine  set  in  destructive  motion,  and  he 
perpetrates  the  extremes!  violence  or  the  most  desperate 
murder  without  consciousness  at  the  time,  and  without 
memory  of  it  afterwards. 

A  deficiency  of  healthy  blood  is  a  cause  of  disorder  of 
the  sensory  centres.  A  great  loss  of  blood  powerfully 
affects  the  senses  ;  the  anosmia  of  chlorotic  and  hysterical 
women  is  the  probable  cause  of  the  many  anomalous 
sensations  and  motor  disturbances  which  disappear  as 
the  condition  of  the  blood  improves ;  and  a  manifest 
poverty  of  blood  often  accompanies  the  chorea  of  chil- 
dren with  its  hallucinations. 

A  perverted  condition  of  the  blood,  whether  from 
something  bred  in  the  body  or  introduced  from  without, 
is  known  to  be  a  powerful  cause  of  sensor}*  disorder. 
Evidence  of  such  injurious  influence  we  have  in  the 
hallucinations  which  sometimes  follow  for  a  time  certain 
acute  diseases,  as  well  as  in  the  delirium  which  occurs 
in  the  course  of  them ;  in  the  effects  which  alcohol  pro- 
duces upon  the  senses ;  in  the  actions  of  poisons,  such 
as  belladonna  and  aconite,  which  markedly  affect  the 
senses ;  and  especially  in  the  operation  of  haschisch,  a 
poison  which  appears  to  concentrate  its  action  upon  the 
sensorium  commune.  In  hydrophobia  the  presence  of 
a  virus  in  the  blood  notably  gives  rise  to  most  violent 
nervous  disturbance ;  the  sight  or  sound  of  a  fluid,  a 
movement  in  the  room,  or  a  current  of  air,  being  suffi- 
cient to  excite  terrible  convulsions. 

4.  An  irritation  operating  by  reflex  action  is  un- 
doubtedly the  occasional  cause  of  sensorial  disturbance. 
Pressure  upon  or  wound  of  a  sensitive  nerve  has  some- 
times produced  extensive  paralysis  of  sensibility ;  a  bad 
tooth  may  notably  give  rise  to  amaurosis ;  vertigo,  hal- 
lucinations, and  illusions  are  now  and  then  plainly  the 
result  of  an  irritation  proceeding  from  a  centripetal 
nerve,  not  perhaps  felt  in  any  other  way  than  as  it  is 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  253 

testified  by  effects  which  disappear  with  the  removal  of 
the  irritation.      An  interesting  example  of  severe  dis- 
turbance of  the  nervous  centres  from  a  slight  eccentric 
irritation  is  related  by  Dr.  Brown-Sequard,  to  whom  it 
was  communicated  by  Mr.  C.  De  Morgan.     A  lad,  aged 
fourteen,  as  he  was  getting  up  in  the  morning,  was  heard 
by  his  father  to  be  making  a  great  noise  in  his  bedroom. 
On  the  latter  rushing  into  the  room,  he  found  his  son  in 
his  shirt,  violently   agitated,  talking   incoherently,  and 
breaking  to  pieces  the  furniture.     His  father  caught  hold 
of  him  and  put  him  back  into  bed,  where  at  once  the 
boy  became  composed,  but  did  not  seem  at  all  conscious 
of  what  he  had  done.     On  getting  out  of  bed  he  had 
felt  something  odd,  he  said,  but  he  was  quite  well.     A 
surgeon  who  was  sent  for  found  him  reading   quietly, 
with  clean  tongue  and  cheerful  countenance,  and  wishful 
to  get  up.     He  had  never  had  epilepsy,  but  had  enjoyed 
good  health  hitherto.     He  was  told  to  get  up ;  but  on 
putting  his  feet  on  the  floor  and  standing  up  his  coun- 
tenance  instantly  changed,   the  jaw   became   violently 
convulsed,  and  he  was  about  to  rush  forward,  when  he 
was  seized  and  pushed  back  on  to  the  bed.     At  once  he 
became  calm  again,  said  he  had  felt  odd,  but  was  sur- 
prised when  asked  what  was  the  matter  with  him.     He 
had  been  fishing  on  the  previous  day,  and,  having  got 
his  line  entangled,  had  waded  into  the  river  to  disengage 
it,  but  was  not  aware  that  he  had  hurt  his  feet  in  any 
way, — that  he  had  even  scratched  them.    "  But  on  hold- 
ing up  the  right  great  toe  with  my  finger  and  thumb,  to 
examine  the  sole  of  the  foot,  the  leg  was  drawn  up,  and 
the  muscles  of  the  jaw  were  suddenly  convulsed,  and  on 
letting  go  the  toe  these  effects  instantly  ceased."    There 
was  no  redness,  no  swelling,  but  on  the  bulb  of  the  toe 
a  small  elevation,  as  if  a  bit  of  gravel,  less  than  the  head 
of  a  pin,  had  been  pressed  beneath  the  cuticle.     On 
compressing  this  against  the   nail   cautiously,  a  slight 


254  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [CHAP. 

convulsion  ensued ;  there  was  no  pricking  when  pressed, 
but  he  said  something  made  him  fed  very  odd.  The 
slightly  raised  part  was  clipped  away ;  no  gravel  was 
found,  but  the  strange  sensation  was  gone,  and  never 
returned.* 

The  general  bodily  feeling  which  results  from  the  sum 
of  the  different  organic  processes  is  not  attended  with 
any  definite  consciousness  or  perception  of  the  causes 
that  give  rise  to  it ;  the  organic  stimuli  are,  in  fact, 
organically  felt,  but  do  not  in  the  natural  state  of  health 
excite,  as  a  stimulus  to  one  of  the  special  senses  does, 
a  particular  state  of  consciousness ;  and  when  the  organic 
stimuli  do  force  themselves  into  consciousness,  as  hap- 
pens in  disease,  then  it  is  in  pain  that  their  action  is  felt. 
In  respect  of  our  organic  feeling  we  are,  in  reality,  on  a 
level  with  those  humble  animals  that  have  a  general  sen- 
sibility without  any  organs  for  special  discrimination  and 
comparison  ;  and  if  this  were  the  only  feeling  which  an 
individual  had,  he  would  probably  not  know  that  he 
was  an  ego.  Having  no  idea  of  the  particular  cause  of 
any  modification  in  this  general  feeling,  we  are  plainly 
most  favourably  placed  for  the  generation  of  illusions 
with  regard  to  the  cause.  Consequently  it  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  that  the  insane  frequently  have  extravagant 

*  Lectures  on  the  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  the  Central  A'ervotu 
System,  by  Dr.  Brown-Sequard,  1860.  A  case  singularly  and  sus- 
piciously like  the  one  above  related  is  quoted  by  Burrows  (Com- 
mentaries on  Insanity,  p.  215)  from  Ilufcland.  A  boy  between 
thirteen  and  fourteen  years  of  age  suddenly  began  to  talk  in  a  very 
wild  and  incoherent  way,  and  at  length  became  ungovernable.  This 
state  was  assuaged  by  soporifics.  But  the  paroxysm  was  observed 
to  recur  whenever  he  was  placed  on  his  feet.  On  examination,  a 
reddish  spot  was  noticed  on  one  foot,  which,  when  pressed,  always 
occasioned  a  fresh  paroxysm.  Upon  an  incision  being  made,  a 
rcinute  piece  of  glass  was  discovered  and  extracted.  During  the 
operation  the  patient  was  furious,  but  every  symptom  of  violence 
vanished  when  the  offending  cause  was  removed. 


iv.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  255 

hallucinations  and  illusions  respecting  the  cause  of  an 
abnormal  sensation  which  is  actually  clue  to  a  morbid 
state  of  some  integral  organ ;  they  think  to  interpret  it 
as  its  unusual  character  seems  to  demand,  and  conform- 
ably with  their  experience  of  the  definite  perceptions 
of  the  special  senses;  accordingly  they  attribute  the 
anomalous  feeling  to  frogs,  serpents,  or  other  such  crea 
tures  that  have  got  into  their  insides. 

5.  Whether  any  beneficial  influence  is  exerted  upon 
the  nutrition  of  the  nervous  centres  of  the  sensorium 
commune  by  ihc  centres  that  lie  above  it,  must  remain 
uncertain,  though  it  is  probable  enough.  No  trustworthy 
conclusions  c?.a  be  drawn  from  experiments  in  which  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  have  been  removed,  for  the  mis- 
chief done  is  far  too  great  to  warrant  any  inference.  It 
is  certain  that  an  area  of  morbid  activity  in  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  may  act  injuriously  upon  the  sensory  centres 
and  give  rise  to  secondary  derangement  of  their  func- 
tions; but  the  result  is  then  perhaps  due  to  reflex  or 
sympathetic  action,  the  morbid  centre  acting  as  a  morbid 
centre  of  irritation  in  another  internal  organ  notably  does. 

In  concluding  this  account  of  the  sensory  nervous 
centres,  I  have  only  to  add  that  a  review  of  their  relations 
and  functions  does  certainly  establish  a  close  analogy 
with  the  relations  and  functions  of  the  spinal  centres. 
In  both  cases  there  are  nervous  centres  which  have  the 
power  of  independent  reaction,  though  they  are  usually 
subordinated  to  the  control  of  higher  centres ;  in  both 
cases  the  faculties  are  for  the  most  part  organised  gradu- 
ally in  relation  to  outward  circumstances  through  the 
plastic  power  of  the  nervous  centres ;  and  in  both  cases 
the  independent  power  of  action  of  the  centres  may,  by 
reason  of  disease,  be  exhibited  in  explosive  demonstra- 
tion. The  paroxysm  of  hallucination  which  affects  the 
cells  of  the  sensorium  commune  excites,  a  corresponding 
convulsive  energy  of  the  motor  centres,  and  drives  the 


256  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

furious  epileptic  to  desperate  violence,  is  as  little  within  his 
control  as  is  the  convulsion  of  his  limbs  that  is  owing  to 
disease  of  the  spinal  cord. 

NOTES. 

1  (p.  194). — It  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  Dr.  Darwin  distin- 
guished voluntary  from  sensori-motor  movements.  "  Many  common 
actions  of  life  are  produced  in  a  similar  manner  (i.e.,  by  sensation).  II 
a  fly  settles  on  my  forehead,  whilst  I  am  intent  on  my  present  occu- 
pation, I  dislodge  it  with  my  finger  without  exciting  my  attention  or 
breaking  the  train  of  my  ideas." — Zoonomia,  vol.  i.  p.  40.  "  Other 
muscular  motions,  that  are  frequently  connected  with  our  sensations, 
as  those  of  the  sphincter  of  the  bladder  and  anus,  and  the  musculi 
erectores  penis,  were  originally  excited  into  motion  by  irritation,  for 
young  children  make  water,  and  have  other  evacuations,  without 
attention  to  these  circumstances — '  et  primis  etiam  ab  incunabulis 
tenduntur  scepius  puerorum  penes,  amore  nondum  expergefacto. 
So  the  nipples  of  young  women  are  liable  to  become  turgid  by  irri- 
tation, long  before  they  are  in  a  situation  to  be  excited  by  the 
pleasure  of  giving  milk  to  the  lips  of  the  child." — Ibid.  p.  38.  "There 
is  a  criterion  by  which  we  may  distinguish  our  voluntary  acts  or 
thoughts  from  those  that  are  excited  by  our  sensations.  The  former 
are  always  employed  about  the  means  to  acquire  pleasurable  objects, 
or  to  avoid  painful  ones ;  while  the  latter  are  employed  about  the 
possession  of  those  that  are  already  in  our  power."  And  he  goes  on 
to  say  that  the  ideas  and  actions  of  brutes,  like  those  of  children  are 
almost  perpetually  produced  by  their  present  pleasure  or  their 
present  pains  ;  they  seldom  busy  themselves  about  the  means  of  pro- 
curing future  bliss  or  avoiding  future  misery. — Ibfd.,  vol.  i.  p.  184. 

One  of  the  best  examples  of  acquired  sensori-motor  action  is 
furnished  by  the  story  of  the  old  soldier  who  was  carrying  home  his 
Sunday  dinner,  when  some  one  behind  him  called  out  suddenly  in  a 
tone  of  command,  "Attention."  Instantly  he  dropped  his  dinner 
and  stood  in  the  attitude  of  attention.  Dr.  Jackson  tells  another 
equally  illustrative  story  :  he  was  riding  on  an  omnibus  one  day 
when,  after  the  vehicle  had  stopped,  one  of  the  horses  turned  stupid 
and  would  not  start  again,  notwithstanding  all  that  the  driver  could 
do.  The  conductor  thereupon  opened  the  door  of  the  omnibus  and 
shut  it  with  a  bang,  when  the  animal  started  at  once. 

a  (p.  2IJ). — In  the  Forty-third  Report  of  Ihe  Massachusetts 
Asylum  for  the  Blind,  Dr.  Howe  relates  the  following  instances  of 


IV.]  SECONDARY  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  257 

the  greater  keenness  to  which  the  remaining  ?ense*  may  be  brought 
when  one  sense  U  absent  : — 

"Julia  Brace,  a  deaf  and  blind  mute,  a  pupil  of  the  American  Asylum, 
had  a  fine  physical  organization  and  highly  nervous  temperament. 
In  her  blindness  and  stillness  her  main  occupation  was  the  exercise 
of  her  remaining  senses  of  smell,  touch,  and  taste,  so  that  through 
them  she  might  get  knowledge  of  all  that  was  going  on  around 
her.  Smell,  however,  seems  to  be  the  sense  on  which  she  most 
relies.  She  smells  at  everything  which  she  can  bring  within  range 
of  the  sense  ;  and  she  has  come  to  perceive  odours  utterly  insensible 
to  other  persons.  When  she  meets  a  person  whom  she  has  met 
before  she  instantly  recognizes  him  by  the  smell  of  his  hand,  or  of 
his  glove.  If  it  be  a  stranger  she  smells  his  hand,  and  the  impres- 
sion is  so  strong  that  she  can  recognize  him  long  after  by  smelling 
his  hand,  or  even  his  glove,  if  just  taken  off.  She  knows  all  her 
acquaintances  by  the  smell  of  their  hands.  Surprising  things  are  told 
of  the  nicety  of  her  sense.  She  was  employed  in  sorting  the  clothes 
of  the  pupils,  after  they  came  out  of  wash,  and  could  distinguish 
those  of  each  friend.  If  half  a  dozen  strangers  should  throw,  each 
one  his  glove  into  a  hat,  and  they  were  shaken  up,  Julia  will  take 
one  glove,  smell  it,  then  smell  the  hand  of  each  person,  and  unerr- 
ingly assign  each  glove  to  its  owner.  It  is  even  said  that  if,  among 
the  visitors,  there  is  a  brother  and  sister,  Julia  can  pick  out  their 
gloves  by  a  certain  similarity  of  smell,  but  cannot  distinguish  the 
one  from  the  other."  Does  not  this  case  furnish  a  strong  argument 
in  support  of  the  conjecture  that  a  dog  removed  to  a  distant  place 
finds  its  way  home  by  following  backwards  a  train  of  smells  which 
it  has  experienced  ? 

He  gives  another  instance  illustrating  the  remarkable  acu'eness  of 
the  sense  of  hearing  in  a  blind  boy  : — 

"Many  years  ago,  an  ingenious  locksmith  applied  to  me  for  the 
Moan '  of  a  blind  boy,  as  he  said,  who  had  quick  ears  and  a  silent 
mouth.  On  giving  satisfactory  answers,  he  got  his  'loan.'  He 
wanted  a  boy  to  help  him  to  open  a  new  and  complicated  lock  to  a 
safe.  An  inventor  had  exhibited  a  locked  safe  and  the  key,  saying  that 
there  was  money  within,  which  should  be  given  to  whoever  could 
open  the  lock  without  deranging  it.  The  peculiarity  of  the  lock  was 
that  it  had  ten  bolts  which  could  not  be  seen  from  the  outside. 
These  ten  bolts  seemed,  from  all  that  could  be  ascertained,  exactly 
alike ;  but,  in  reality,  one  ( f  them  was  an  inch  longer  than  the 
others,  so  that  when  all  were  thrown  forward,  that  one  alone 
reached  the  projecting  part  of  the  safe,  and  held  the  door  closed. 
The  key,  when  inserted,  would  lift  any  of  the  ten  bolts  ;  but,  in 


258  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.         [CHAP.  iv. 

order  to  open  the  safe,  it  must  be  applied  to  the  long  bolt,  and  to 
that  only,  and  that  one  must  be  lifted  and  turned  back,  in  order  to 
open  the  lock.  But,  if  any  other  of  the  ten  were  lifted  and  turned 
lack,  ever  so  liitle,  it  deranged  the  combination,  and  the  lock  could 
only  be  opened  by  a  peculiar  instrument.  The  object,  then,  was  to 
ascertain  which  of  the  ten  was  thrown  forward,  without  turning  back 
any  other  one. 

"The  mechanic  lifted  each  bolt  carefully  with  the  key,  and  let  it 
fall,  but  without  trying  to  throw  it  back  ;  and  be  then  tried  to 
ascertain  if  in  falling  it  made  any  peculiar  noise  ;  for  he  inferred 
that,  as  the  only  one  which  held  the  door  was  an  inch  longer  than 
the  others,  it  must  fall  with  a  slightly  greater  force.  But  the 
difference  was  too  slight  for  his  ear.  He  took  the  blind  lad,  and 
asked  him  to  listen  carefully  to  the  sound  which  each  bolt  made  as 
he  lifted  it  and  let  it  fall  After  listening  to  each  one  intently,  the 
lad  said  the  sixth  one  struck  a  little  the  loudest  The  mechanic 
lifted  and  let  fall  each  one  carefully  several  times,  and  each  time  the 
boy  insisted  that  the  sixth  bolt  sounded  the  loudest.  Upon  this, 
the  mechanic  lifted  and  turned  back  the  sixth,  and  the  lock  was 
opened  without  the  combination  being  deranged." 

3  (p.  236). — "  ALCIPHRON  :-^-If  vision  be  only  a  language  speak- 
ing to  the  eyes,  it  may  be  asked,  when  did  men  learn  this  language  ? 
To  acquire  the  knowledge  of  so  many  signs  as  go  to  the  making  up 
a  language,  is  a  work  of  some  difficulty.  But  will  any  man  say  he 
hath  spent  time,  or  been  at  pains,  to  learn  this  language  of  vision  ? 

"EUPHRANOR  : — No  wonder  we  cannot  assign  a  time  beyond 
our  remotest  memory.  If  we  have  been  all  practising  this  language, 
ever  since  our  first  entrance  into  the  world  :  if  the  author  of  nature 
constantly  speaks  to  the  eyes  of  all  mankind,  even  in  their  earliest 
infancy,  whenever  their  eyes  are  open  in  the  light,  whether  alone  or 
in  company  :  it  doth  not  seem  to  me  at  all  strange  that  men  shonld 
not  be  aware  they  had  ever  learned  a  language,  begun  so  early,  and 
practised  so  constantly,  as  this  of  vision.  And  if  we  also  consider  that 
it  is  the  same  throughout  the  whole  world,  and,  not  like  other 
languages,  differing  in  different  places,  it  will  not  seem  unaccount- 
able that  men  should  mistake  the  connexion  between  the  proper 
objects  of  sight  and  the  things  signified  by  them  to  be  founded  in 
necessary  relation,  or  likeness,  or  that  they  should  even  take  them 
for  the  same  things.  Hence  it  seems  easy  to  conceive,  why  men 
who  do  not  think  should  confound  in  this  language  of  vision  the  signs 
with  the  things  signified,  otherwise  than  they  are  wont  to  do  in  the 
various  particular  languages  formed  by  the  several  nations  of  men." 
—BISHOP  BERKELEY'S  Minute  Philosopher,  vol.  i.  p.  231.  Ed,  1732. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA;  CORTICAL  CELLS  OP 
THE  CEREBRAL  HEMISPHERES;  IDEATIONAL 
NERVOUS  CENTRES;*  PRIMARY  OR  SUPREME 
NERVOUS  CENTRES;  INTELLECTORIUM  COM- 
MUNE. 

BY  the  study  of  physiology  it  has  been  placed  beyond 
doubt  that  the  nerve-cells  which  exist  in  countless  numbers 
— about  600  millions  in  number,  according  to  Meynert's 
calculations — in  the  grey  matter  spread  over  the  surface  of 
the  hemispheres  are  the  nervous  centres  of  ideas.  The 
cerebral  hemispheres  represent,  in  reality,  two  large  ganglia 
that  lie  above  the  sensory  and  motor  centres,  and  are 
connected  with  them  by  a  multitude  of  nerve-fibres,  de- 
scribed by  Reil  as  the  fibres  of  the  internal  sense ;  they 
are  superadded  in  man  and  the  higher  animals  for  the 
further  fashioning  of  sensory  impressions  into  ideas  or 
conceptions. 

This  important  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  human 
mind  consists  in  an  abstraction  of  the  essential  irom 
the  particular  and  its  re-embodiment  in  idea ;  it  is  in  fact 
an  idealisation  of  the  sensory  impressions,  and  may  be 

*  "  We  have  not  a  name  for  that  complex  notion  which  embraces 
ns  one  whole  all  the  different  phenomena  to  which  the  term  Idea 
relates.  As  we  say  Sensation,  we  might  say  also  Ideation ;  it 
would  be  a  very  useful  word  ;  and  there  is  no  objection  to  it,  except 
the  pedantic  habit  of  decrying  a  new  term." — JAMES  MILL,  Analysis 
of  the  Human  Mind,  p.  42. 


260  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

regarded  as  an  epigenetic  development  of  nature :  what  the 
true  artist  does  in  his  art  nature  does  continually  in  the 
development  of  the  human  mind.     Looking  not  at  the 
individual  man  and  his  work  as  the  end,  but  looking  at 
him  as  a  small  and  subordinate  part  of  the  vast  and  har- 
monious whole,  as  a  means  to  a  far-off  end,  it  is  suffi- 
ciently evident  that  the  history  of  mankind  is  the  history 
of  the  latest  and  highest  organic  development ;  that  in 
the  evolution  of  the  human  mind  nature  is  undergoing  its 
consummate  development  through  man.     And  the  law 
manifest  in  this  highest  display  of  organic  development 
is  still  that   law  of  progressive   specialisation   and  in- 
creasing complexity  which  has  been  traceable  through 
the  long  chain  of  organic  beings.     So  exquisitely  deli- 
cate, however,  are  the  organic  processes  of  mental  de- 
velopment which  take  place  in  the  nerve-centres  of  the 
cortical  layers,  that  they  are  certainly,  so  far  as  our  pre- 
sent means  of  investigation  reach,  quite  impenetrable  to 
the  senses ;  the  mysteries  of  their  secret  operations  can- 
not be  unravelled  ;  they  are  like  nebulae  which  no  tele- 
scope can  yet  resolve.     Nor  will  it  be  thought  reasonable 
to  ask  such  knowledge,  when  we  reflect  that  we  have  not 
yet  the  means  of  knowing  the  properties  and  structure  of 
the  molecule  of  any  liquid  or  solid — what  are  its  internal 
motions  and  what  are  the  parts  and  shape  of  it;  and  that 
it  would  require  a  microscope  capable  of  magnifying  from 
12,000  to  16,000  times  to  show  the  molecular  structure 
of  water.* 

The  cerebral  hemispheres  are  not  alone  the  nerve  cen- 
tres of  ideas,  but  they  are  also  the  centres  of  emotion  and 
volition.  In  animals  that  are  deprived  of  their  hemi- 
spheres, all  trace  of  spontaneity  or  will  disappears  from 
their  movements ;  this  effect  being,  as  might  be  expected, 

*  According  to  Sir  W.  Thomson's  calculations,  the  distance 
between  two  molecules  of  water  is  such  that  there  are  between  five 
hundred  millions  and  five  thousand  millions  of  them  in  an  inch. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  261 

much  more  evident  in  experiments  on  the  higher  than  on 
the  lower  Vertebrata.  In  Fishes,  as  for  example  in  the 
carp,  scarcely  any  difference  is  observed  in  its  swimming 
after  its  hemispheres  have  been  removed  ;  but  if  its  move- 
ments be  watched  more  carefully,  and  compared  with 
those  of  a  carp  which  has  not  been  mutilated,  a  certain 
change  will  be  recognised.  According  to  Vulpian,  it 
moves  forward  in  a  straight  line,  never  turning  to  one 
side  or  the  other  except  when  it  meets  with  an  obstacle, 
and  not  stopping  until  it  is  completely  fatigued ;  it  seems 
impelled  to  move  by  some  necessity,  a  necessity  occa- 
sioned probably  by  the  stimulus  of  the  water  on  its  body. 
The  more  marked  effects  produced  in  the  higher  Verte- 
brata by  the  removal  of  the  hemispheres  have  already 
been  described. 

It  has  long  been  surmised  that  different  convolutions 
of  the  brain  discharge  different  functions  in  the  mental 
life,  and  the  phrenologists,  by  inferring  organ  from  func- 
tion, went  so  far  as  to  precisely  map  out  the  cerebral 
surface  into  definite  regions  and  to  assign  its  particular 
mental  faculty  to  each  region.  The  localisation  which 
they  made  has  not  been  borne  out  by  anatomical  re- 
search, nor  do  the  faculties  which  they  assume  receive 
adequate  support  from  psychological  analysis.  That  the 
high,  broad,  and  prominent  forehead  marked  intellectual 
power,  was  a  belief  which  the  ancient  Greeks  entertained, 
and  which  has  long  been  popularly  held  ;  and  the  notion 
that  lowness  and  narrowness  of  the  forehead  indicate 
intellectual  inferiority  is  in  harmony  with  the  observa- 
tions that  in  the  negro,  and  more  markedly  in  the  Bosjes- 
man,  the  anterior  part  of  the  hemispheres  is  narrower 
than  in  Europeans,  and  that  the  narrowing  of  the  frontal 
lobes  to  a  point  is  one  character  by  which  the  brain  of 
the  monkey  differs  from  that  of  man.  It  has  been  con- 
jectured also  that  the  upper  part  of  the  brain  and  the 
posterior  lobes  have  more  to  do  with  feeling  than  with  the 


262  777.fi:  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [CHAP. 

understanding;  Huschke  found  them  to  have  a  propor- 
tionately greater  development  in  women  than  in  men ; 
and  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk's  pathological  researches 
afforded  him  what  he  considered  convincing  proofs  that 
the  anterior  lobes  of  the  brain  were  the  seat  of  the  higher 
intellectual  faculties,  and  that  the  upper  and  posterior 
lobes  ministered  rather  to  the  emotional  life. 

Comte  elaborated  a  phrenological  scheme  which  was  a 
modification  of  that  put  forth  by  Gall,  holding  confidently 
that  from  the  study  of  cerebral  functions  it  was  possible  to 
determine  the  number  of  cerebral  organs  and  their  rela- 
tive position.  But  the  details  of  his  scheme  will  hardly 
strengthen  the  authority  of  his  method.  Regarding  the 
brain  as  forming  an  anatomical  connection  between  the 
two  external  mechanisms  of  sensory  and  of  motor  nerves, 
as  it  manifestly  does,  he  surmised  that  the  arrangement 
of  the  two  parts  of  the  central  apparatus  would  be  ad- 
justed to  these  two  extreme  terms  in  the  system,  and  was 
led  to  place  the  intellectual  organs  in  front,  as  being 
more  connected  with  the  various  mechanisms  of  sensa- 
tions. The  rest  of  the  brain  was  appropriated  by  him  to 
affective  functions,  which  were  placed  backwards  because 
of  their  connection  with  the  principal  mechanisms  of 
motion ;  the  centres  of  intellectual  operations,  which  do 
not  of  themselves  lead  to  motion,  being  more  remote 
from  its  mechanism.  The  cerebral  functions  were  sup- 
posed to  be  higher  in  quality  and  inferior  in  force  as  we 
proceed  from  behind  forwards  ;  and  in  conformity  with 
this  view  the  anterior  part  of  the  affective  region  was 
appropriated  to  the  social  or  altruistic  feelings,  which 
were  thus  in  proximity  to  the  intellectual  organs,  the 
hinder  part  being  reserved  for  the  less  noble  personal  or 
egoistic  propensities. 

In  consequence  of  pathological  observations  it  was 
insisted  by  Dr.  Todd,  contrary  to  general  opinion  at 
that  time,  that  the  seat  of  the  convulsive  phenomena  of 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  263 

epilepsy  was  in  the  cerebral  lobes,  but  this  theory  found  no 
favour,  because  of  the  general  belief  that  the  grey  matter 
was  insensible  to  stimulation  and  had  nothing  to  do  with 
movements.  Nevertheless  the  observations  of  Dr.  Wilks 
led  him  subsequently  to  a  decided  conviction  of  the 
correctness  of  Dr.  Todd's  opinion;  he  had  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  for  one  case  of  disease  in  the  pons  varolii 
with  epilepsy,  fifty  cases  might  be  found  in  which  the 
morbid  changes  were  on  the  surface  of  the  brain ;  and  he 
could  not  see  any  grounds  for  the  theory  that  the  seat  of 
epilepsy  was  in  the  pons  or  in  the  central  ganglia  of  the 
brain.  He  felt  sure  that  the/o/ts  rf  origo  malt  was  in  the 
cortical  layers  of  the  brain,  and  that  improved  methods 
of  examination  would  disclose  morbid  changes  there  in 
cases  of  long-standing  epilepsy.*  Before  this,  Broca  had 
propounded  a  theory  that  the  seat  of  articulate  language 
was  in  the  posterior  part  of  the  third  convolution  of  the 
left  side  of  the  brain,  founding  it  upon  certain  patholo- 
gical observations  in  which  loss  of  speech  was  accom- 
panied by  destruction  thereof;  and  the  theory,  though  it 
seemed  startling  and  improbable  to  many  persons,  had 
received  competent  support.  Dr.  Hughlings  Jackson 
next  made  a  conjectural  step  farther  in  our  knowledge 
of  epilepsy ;  noticing  that  the  convulsive  phenomena 
often  commenced  in  certain  muscles,  different  in  different 
cases,  and  then  spread  to  the  whole  body,  he  inferred 
that  the  commencement  of  the  morbid  irritation  which 
led  to  the  epileptic  discharge  was  in  the  special  convolu- 
tions presiding  over  the  group  of  muscles  first  affected, 
and  that  it  afterwards  spread  to  the  other  convolutions. 
He  ventured  even  in  some  instances^o  fix  upon  the 
special  convolution  which  was  presumably  at  fault 

Such,  until  quite  recently,  was  all  that  was  known  or 
conjectured   concerning  the  functions   of  the  different 

*  "  Observations  on   the  Pathology  of  Diseases  of  the  Nervous 
System."     Guy's  Hospital  Reports. 


264  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

cerebral  convolutions.  There  was  great  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  acquiring  more  exact  knowledge  by  means  of 
physiological  experiments  on  animals  and  pathological 
observations  of  man,  the  difficulty  being  much  increased 
by  the  fact  that  the  hemispheres  have  a  compensating 
action ;  for  it  has  been  observed  that  a  pigeon  which  has 
had  one  hemisphere  or  considerable  portions  of  both 
hemispheres  removed  does  not,  after  a  few  days  or 
weeks,  present  any  notable  differences  from  an  unin- 
jured bird.  In  man,  too,  not  only  may  there  be  consid- 
erable destruction  of  a  portion  of  one  hemisphere  by 
disease  without  any  disturbance  of  intelligence,  the  dis- 
turbance, if  any,  being  more  often  motor  than  mental, 
but  there  may  be  a  total  destruction  of  one  hemisphere 
without  any  appreciable  impairment  of  mental  function. 
The  probable  explanation  of  these  facts  is  that  different 
parts  of  the  cortical  area  replace  one  another  in  function 
in  a  singularly  complete  manner,  so  that  a  disturbance 
of  function  produced  at  first  by  sudden  injury  or  disease 
gradually  disappears  more  or  less  completely.  This 
vicarious  action  will  appear  the  less  surprising  when  we 
call  to  mind  the  infinite  multitude  of  nerve-cells  that 
exist  in  the  grey  matter  of  the  hemispheres,  the  great 
majority  of  which  are  probably  never  used  in  our  ordi- 
nary mental  functions.  In  fact,  just  as  one  spermatozoon 
suffices  for  impregnation,  while  thousands  are  produced 
only  to  go  to  waste,  so  it  may  be  that  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  the  multitude  of  nerve-cells  which  are 
secreted  in  the  brain  are  engaged  in  mental  function, 
while  thousands  come  and  go  without  being  called  upon 
to  perform  any  ^function  under  ordinary  circumstances. 
A  profuse  and  reckless  waste  of  life  is  in  the  regular 
course  of  nature's  operations. 

Recent  physiological  experiments  on  animals  have  at 
length  thrown  some  light  upon  the  functions  of  the  cerebral 
convolutions.  Instead  of  being  insensible  to  all  kinds  of 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  265 

stimuli  as  was  so  long  supposed,  Fritsch  and  Hitzig  dis- 
covered that  the  application  of  a  weak  galvanic  stimulus 
to  the  cortical  layer  excited  movements ;  they  observed 
furthermore  that  these  movements  were  of  a  definite  co- 
ordinate character,  and  might  be  uniformly  excited  by 
stimulating  particular  convolutions.  Not  all  the  con- 
volutions thus  reacted,  for  stimulation  of  some  was  fol- 
lowed by  no  external  phenomena  whatever ;  but  in  those 
which  did  react  to  the  stimulus  the  results  were  so  defi- 
nite and  uniform  that  they  might  be  predicted.  Similar  ex- 
periments have  been  made  in  this  country  by  Dr.  Ferrier, 
who  made  use  of  the  more  intense  Faradic  current  of  an 
induction  coil ;  the  results  of  which  were  to  confirm  and 
extend  the  observations  of  Fritsch  and  Hitzig.*  It  has 
been  objected  to  these  experiments  that  the  electric 
currents  are  conducted  from  the  surface  of  the  brain  to 
the  motor  centres  in  the  ganglia  beneath,  and  that  the 
results  do  not  therefore  prove  that  there  are  motor 
centres  in  the  cortical  layers.  An  obvious  answer  to 
this  objection  was  that  motor  phenomena  are  not  pro- 
duced by  stimulation  of  all  the  convolutions,  not  even 
by  stimulation  of  some  which  lie  in  much  closer  relation 
to  the  corpora  striata  than  those  which  do  respond  to 
the  stimulus,  and  that  the  stimulation  of  closely  adja- 
cent regions  is  followed  by  uniform  results  of  a  very 
different  character. 

Moreover,  it  has  been  shown  by  Nothnagel  and  others 
that  the  removal  of  the  centres,  the  stimulation  of  which 
produces  certain  co-ordinate  movements,  is  followed  by 

*  A  complete  account  of  these  experiments  is  given  in  Untersuch- 
ungen  iiber  das  Gehirn,  von  Dr.  E.  Hitzig,  Berlin,  1874.  But  the  first 
paper  on  the  subject  appeared  in  Uu  Bois  Reymond's  Archiv,  Heft  3: 
1870.  Dr.  Hitzig  severely  criticises  Dr.  Ferrier,  and  roundly  charges 
him  with  "adorning  his  work,  without  acknowledgment,  with  dis- 
coveries which  belong  not  to  him,  but  to  us."  Dr.  Terrier's  experi- 
ments are  recorded  in  the  West  Riding  Asylum  Rtports,  voL  viii. 
P.  52,  1873. 


266  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

paralysis  of  these  movements.  If  the  cortical  area  form- 
ing the  presumed  centre  be  not  entirely  removed,  but 
only  separated  carefully  from  the  parts  beneath,  so 
as  to  form  a  flap,  and  if  the  stimulus  be  applied  when 
the  flap  is  in  position  no  motor  result  follows,  showing 
that  there  is  no  conduction ;  if  the  flap  be  turned  back, 
and  the  fibres  beneath  be  stimulated,  the  definite  move- 
ment follows.  Dr.  Burdon  Sanderson  had  observed 
that  after  complete  removal  of  the  supposed  cortical 
centres  of  a  group  of  movements  these  might  still  be 
excited  by  stimulation  of  the  white  fibres  beneath,  by 
which  the  removed  centres  had  been  connected  with  the 
corpora  striata ;  and  quite  recently  he  has  succeeded  in 
some  instances,  by  fixing  the  points  in  the  corpus  striatum 
corresponding  to  the  supposed  cortical  motor  centres 
and  applying  the  stimulus  to  them,  in  exciting  the  same 
definite  movements  as  are  produced  by  stimulation  of 
the  cortical  areas. 

These  experiments  are  quite  in  accordance  with  the 
opinion  that  the  actual  co-ordination  of  movements 
is  effected  in  the  motor  ganglia,  and  with  the  observed 
phenomena  of  sensori-motor  action,  but  they  are  also 
consistent  with  the  theory  that  there  are  in  the  cor- 
tical layers  higher  centres  which  are  differentiated  by 
their  special  connections  with  the  co-ordinating  centres 
below  and  minister  to  voluntary  movements — which  sup- 
ply us  with  the  mental  presentations,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
movements.  No  doubt  were  our  senses  acute  enough, 
and  our  instruments  delicate  enough,  to  limit  the  appli- 
cation of  a  stimulus  to  the  special  centre  of  co-ordination 
in  the  subordinate  motor  ganglia  in  all  cases,  we  might 
always  produce  exactly  the  same  definite  movements  as 
we  do  when  we  apply  the  stimulus  to  the  higher  cortical 
centres,  but  as  things  are,  we  certainly  should  not  fail, 
in  most  instances,  to  excite  a  great  many  more  centres 
in  the  motor  ganglion  if  we  were  to  make  the  attempt. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  267 

The  conclusion  then  which  we  are  warranted  in  drawing 
from  the  experiments  is  that  there  are  in  the  cortical  layers 
of  the  hemispheres  motor  areas  which  are  differentiated 
by  having  their  definite  connections  with  the  different 
co-ordinating  centres  in  the  subordinate  motor  ganglia. 

The  question  is,  what  is  the  actual  function  of  these 
cerebral  motor  areas  ?  Fritsch  and  Hitzig  reject  the 
idea  of  an  actual  paralysis  being  produced  by  the  extir- 
pation of  one  of  the  centres;  believing  the  apparent 
paralytic  phenomena  to  be  due  to  a  disturbance  or 
destruction  of  the  muscular  feelings  of  the  special 
movements.  They  fairly  claim  to  have  shown  experi- 
mentally that  those  parts  of  the  cerebral  cortex,  of 
which  stimulation  produces  movements,  and  which  act 
therefore  as  motor  centres,  are  the  seat  of  muscular 
feeling,  of  the  conception  of  the  measure  and  kind 
of  the  muscular  innervation,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the 
so-called  muscular  intuitions.  The  sensory  .and  motor 
ganglia  notably  suffice  to  perform  all  forms  of  move- 
ment in  a  purely  reflex  manner  after  the  removal  of  the 
hemispheres ;  when  the  hemispheres  are  present,  how- 
ever, the  impressions  of  such  reflex  acts  are  carried  cen- 
tripetally  to  the  cortical  centres,  where  they  are,  as  it 
were,  echoed  or  repeated,  and  the  feeling  of  their  inner- 
vation takes  place,  and  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  the 
motor  intuitions  are  formed  which  afterwards  take  their 
part  in  the  conscious  movements  of  the  will.  This  con- 
clusion from  experiment  harmonizes  well  with  what  I 
have  always  maintained  that  psychological  analysis  teaches 
us  concerning  the  nature  of  the  motor  intuitions  and  the 
essential  part  which  they  play  in  our  mental  life.* 

*  In  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  there  was  a  chapter  on  "mo'or 
intuitions  "  which  attracted  no  attention  ;  the  argument  of  which  was 
that  while  the  immediate  agents  of  definite  movements  were  the 
motor  ganglia,  these,  when  active,  had  definite  functional  relations 
with  the  superordinate  cerebral  centres,  in  consequence  of  which  they 
produced  the  motor  intuitions  in  the  latter. 


263  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  convolutions  which  respond  to  stimulation  by 
giving  rise  to  movements  are  in  the  anterior  portion  of 
the  brain  ;  no  motor  effect  is  produced  by  stimulation  of 
the  convolutions  of  the  posterior  lobes.  It  has  been  sur- 
mised that  the  posterior  convolutions  are  the  seat  of 
sensorial  perceptions,  for  while  the  motor  tract  of  the 
cerebral  peduncles  terminates  principally  in  the  cortex 
of  its  frontal  part,  some  of  the  nerves  of  sense  have  been 
traced  to  the  posterior  convolutions,  while  others  are 
presumed  to  end  there.  Moreover,  a  resemblance  in 
some  respects  has  been  observed  between  the  structure 
of  some  of  these  convolutions  and  that  which  is  met  with 
principally  in  parts  that  minister  to  sensation,  to  wit,  the 
retina,  the  olfactory  lobes,  the  nucleus  of  the  fifth  nerve, 
and  the  gelatinous  substance  of  the  posterior  cornu  of 
the  spinal  cord.  Lastly,  the  results  of  experiments  on 
animals,  so  far  as  they  are  definite  and  can  be  relied 
upon,  are  in  favour  of  this  supposition.*  It  would  appear 
then  that  in  the  frontal  part  of  the  convolutions  are  con- 
tained the  residua  of  the  feelings  of  movements,  from 
which  we  derive  our.  so-called  motor  intuitions,  and  that 
in  the  posterior  part  of  the  convolutions  are  contained 
the  residua  of  the  sensory  perceptions,  from  which  the 
sensory  elements  in  ideas  are  obtained. 

Here  then  we  have  disclosed  to  us  the  path  of  a  psy- 
chical reflex  act  The  activity  excited  in  the  posterior 
convolutions  passes  to  the  anterior  convolutions  and 
there  gets  expression  in  the  appropriate  movement  or 
speech.  It  is  the  simplest  type  of  a  mental  process.  We 
have  reached  in  fact  the  higher  ideo-motor  or  percepto- 

*  The  supposition  has  been  recently  strengthened  by  the  results 
of  numerous  experiments  which  Dr.  Ferrier  has  made  upon  the 
brains  of  monkeys.  The  briefest  notices  of  these  results  have  ap- 
peared in  one  or  other  of  the  medical  journals,  but  I  am  not  aware 
that  any  detailed  description  of  the  experiments  has  yet  been 
published. 


-.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  269 

motor  arc,  which  is  spread  above  or  overarches  the 
sensori-motor  arc ;  perception  answering  to  the  afferent 
impression,  and  the  efferent  effect  being  the  issue  of 
the  idea  in  movements.  We  may  conceive  the  hemi- 
spheres to  be  formed  of  a  multitude  of  such  arcs  which 
are  interconnected  in  so  many  ways  through  junction- 
cells  as  to  form  a  number  of  inconceivably  intricate 
plexuses,  such  complication  of  structure  producing  cor- 
responding mental  complexity  ;  wherefore  it  must  almost 
always  happen,  after  mind  has  been  developed,  that 
many  associated  sensory  residua  and  many  associated 
motor  residua,  joining  forces  with  or  antagonizing  one 
another,  are  simultaneously  or  successively  excited  by  a 
stimulus.  Although  movement  may  be  looked  upon  as 
the  outgoing  energy  of  which  sensation  is  the  incoming 
supply,  the  expenditure  of  what  has  been  gathered  in, 
yet  so  many  perceptions  have  been  capitalized  in  the 
convolutions  and  may  be  drawn  upon  when  a  demand 
is  made,  that  the  outgoing  current  represents,  not  merely 
a  reflected  energy,  but  a  motor  effect  which  is  charged 
with  the  gains  of  past  experiences,  that  is  to  say,  is 
enlightened  by  reason. 

It  may  be  asked,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  ideas  that 
are  formed  in  perception  ?  Are  they  impressions  traced 
upon  the  brain,  as  Haller  argued,  or  are  they  of  the 
nature  of  minute  vibrations  or  oscillations — currents  of 
molecular  activity,  along  different  nervous  paths,  as 
Bonnet  ingeniously  surmised?  *  It  is  easy  to  under- 

*  "  La  faculte  par  laquelle  les  representations  s'operent  est 
('imagination,  mais  les  idees  sont  attaches  aux  mouvements  des 
fibres  sensibles.  Pour  qu'une  idee  se  presente  de  nouveaux  a  Tame, 
il  faut  done  que  les  fibres  appropriees  a  cette  idee  soicnt  mues  de 
nouveau.  La  disposition  du  cerveau  a  repel er  ces  mouvements 
constitue  done  1'imagination." — BONNET,  Essai  de  Psych. 

"Objections  made  to  this  opinion  show  how  necessary  to  a  know- 
ledge of  psychology  is  a  thorough  knowledge  of  physics  and  physi- 
ology. It  is  said  that  the  fibres  are  not  capable  of  the  tension  and 
13 


270  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

stand  that  the  occurrence  of  such  vibrations  along  a 
nerve  track  on  one  occasion  would  render  the  delicately 
organized  matter  more  apt  to  fall  into  similar  vibrations 
on  another  occasion ;  it  has  undergone  a  certain  modi- 
fication in  consequence  of  its  excitation,  and  it  will  the 
more  readily  give  back  the  same  note,  so  to  speak,  or 
fall  into  the  same  rate  of  vibration,  when  it  is  again 
stimulated  suitably,  just  as  the  stretched  string  of  a 
piano,  when  several  notes  are  sung  in  the  room,  will 
give  back  the  note  belonging  to  it.  When  we  speak  of 
a  trace,  vestige  or  residuum,  all  we  mean  to  imply  is 
that  an  effect  is  left  behind  in  the  organic  element,  a 
something  retained  by  it,  which  disposes  it  to  a  similar 
functional  act;  a  disposition  has  been  acquired  which 
differentiates  it  henceforth,  although  we  have  no  reason 
to  think  that  there  was  any  original  specific  difference 
between  one  nerve-cell  and  another.  When  we  are  con- 
scious of  this  revival  of  the  past,  we  say  that  we  remem- 
ber it ;  but  when  it  takes  place,  as  it  does  every  minute 
of  our  lives,  without  consciousness,  then  we  have  no 
proper  name  for  it.  What  are  we  to  call  this  mental 
correlative  of  a  nervous  process  which  affects  us  not 
consciously?  Those  who  would  call  it  memory  are 
charged  with  gross  philosophical  absurdity  or  with  a 

relaxation  which  more  rapid  and  forcible  vibrations,  or  those  which 
are  slower  and  feebler,  would  require.  As  if  the  fibres  were  sup- 
posed to  vibrate  in  their  places  like  strings  !  Then  again,  that  they 
are  not  sufficiently  numerous  to  answer  to  the  myriads  of  millions 
of  states  of  thought  and  feeling  which  are  represented  in  memory 
and  in  the  fancy.  Again,  it  is  objected,  the  theory,  if  complete  and 
adequate  in  every  other  particular,  would  fail  entirely  to  account  for 
the  creative  energy  of  the  imagination.  Let  it  be  granted  that  it 
did  so  fail,  it  might  not  be  an  entirely  unprofitable  failure,  if  it  moved 
psychologists  to  reflect  how  little  they  account  for  by  contentedly 
using  the  word  imagination  to  do  duty  for  actual  knowledge,  and 
helped  them  to  realise  what  a  quantity  of  ignorance  they  hide  under 
its  use." — 7'he  Human  Intellect.  Noah  Porter,  D.D.  (p.  273.) 


T.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  271 

glaring  contradiction  of  terms.  Memory,  it  is  said,  im- 
plies consciousness,  and  the  term  '  unconscious  memory ' 
is  self-annihilating.  So  be  it,  if  it  is  insisted  that  memory 
shall  only  be  used  in  this  restricted  sense,  only  we  must 
be  careful  not  to  let  such  use  of  the  word  blind  us  to  the 
facts :  we  ought  to  take  heed  that  we  do  not  lose  grasp 
of  the  important  and  incontestible  fact  that  the  physio- 
logical process  of  retention  is  something  which  lies 
beneath  memory,  which  takes  place  unconsciously,  and 
which  is  the  physical  basis  of  memory  and  of  every  other 
mental  function.  Believing  then  with  Bonnet  that  ideas 
are  insensible  motions  of  nerve-molecules,  of  the  nature 
of  vibrations,  or,  as  Hartley  called  them,  vibriatuncles,  we 
may  grant  that  in  Haller's  description  of  them  as  impres- 
sions made  upon  the  brain  there  was  a  just  recognition 
of  this  important  physiological  process  of  retention. 

Ideas  which  arise  from  perception  are  naturally  more 
vivid  than  when  they  are  excited  by  internal  causes — ideas 
of  presentation  than  ideas  of  representation — because  the 
motions  are  more  easily  and  actively  excited  in  the  way 
they  were  first  and  are  habitually  excited,  and  because 
when  excited  by  external  causes,  there  is  a  vivid  presen- 
tation of  the  sensory  as  well  as  of  the  motor  element  of 
the  idea,  which  therefore  occupies  the  attention  more 
exclusively ;  but  if  intense  attention  be  given  to  them  when 
internally  aroused,  they  may  be  made  more  active,  the 
sensory  element  being  excited  by  reaction  of  energy  upon 
its  centre,  and  may  sometimes  become  so  vivid  as  to 
generate  actual  hallucinations.  Just  as  the  expression 
of  an  emotion  by  its  suitable  gesture  will  excite  or  in- 
crease the  emotion,  causing  it  to  fill  the  field  of  con- 
scious vision,  or,  in  other  words,  to  engage  the  whole 
attention,  so  the  internal  repetition  or  actual  utter- 
ance of  the  word  which  is  the  symbol  of  an  idea  re- 
acts upon  the  perceptive  centre  of  it  and  makes  more 
vivid,  through  this  sensory  representation,  the  concep- 


272  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

tion  of  what  it  represents.  We  are  only  describing  the 
same  facts  in  different  terms  when  we  say  that  we  are 
directing  attention  to  it. 

In  the  foregoing  chapter  it  was  pointed  out  that  a 
perception  groups  or  organizes  several  sensations  into 
one  idea.  Once  the  idea  of  the  object  has  been  thus 
acquired,  any  one  of  the  different  sensations  of  which 
it  is  constituted  may  suffice  to  arouse  it ;  it  may  be  ap- 
prehended through  sight,  or  touch,  or  perhaps  taste  or 
smell,  not  otherwise  than  as  it  may  be  apprehended 
through  the  written  word  after  we  have  learnt  to  read : 
the  sensation,  like  the  word,  is  a  symbol  which  serves  to 
excite  it.  Our  perceptions  are  really  a  language  that  we 
have  been  learning  all  our  lives,  and  we  no  more  per- 
ceive by  a  single  sense  the  actual  object,  as  we  appre- 
hend it  in  idea,  than  we  perceive  the  actual  object  in 
the  artificial  word  or  sign  which  has  been  used  to  de- 
note it  Seeing  alone,  or  smelling  alone,  for  instance, 
would  not  impart  any  definite  notion  of  the  properties 
of  an  external  object ;  it  could  impart  nothing  more 
than  its  special  sensation  until  a  definite  knowledge  of 
the  existence  and  nature  of  the  object  had  been  acquired 
by  association  of  the  sensation  with  the  experiences  of 
other  senses,  that  is,  by  experience  and  observation. 
The  impressions  of  its  different  qualities  or  properties 
received  through  the  different  senses  are  combined  in 
the  idea  of  it,  and  thenceforth  we  can  think  and  reason 
about  it  abstractly  through  the  idea  when  it  is  not  pre- 
sent to  any  sense.  This  abstraction  is  made  essentially 
easier  by  the  fact  that  the  object  may  be  apprehended 
through  different  senses;  not  being  inseparably  linked 
to  any  one  sensory  impression,  it  is  more  easily  thought 
about  abstractly  from  all  sensation.  The  idea  in  fact  is 
organised  as  a  separate  mental  existence  in  the  cerebral 
convolutions,  being  for  us,  when  so  organised,  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes  the  object,  and  may  be  aroused  into 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  273 

independent  activity.  Every  idea  is  thus  representative, 
the  abstract  of  many  sensations,  comprising  implicitly 
more  than  it  displays  explicitly ;  in  it  the  essential  is 
embodied,  the  unessential  suppressed  or  rejected ;  it  is 
not  the  idea  of  any  particular  object  or  event,  but  the 
idea  of  every  object  or  event  of  a  particular  kind  ;  it  is 
fundamentally  a  generalisation  or  induction.  We  may 
justly  say,  then,  that  the  ideational  nerve  centres  idealise 
or  ideate  our  sensory  perceptions;  the  process  of  idea- 
tion, like  other  processes  of  organic  evolution,  being 
one  of  progressive  differentiation  and  integration, — of 
discrimination  of  the  unlike  and  assimilation  of  the  like. 
As  mental  development  proceeds  we  get  not  only  more 
ideas,  but  ideas  which  are  more  and  more  abstract. 
From  the  idea  of  a  concrete  man  we  rise  to  the  general 
idea  of  man,  and  from  the  general  idea  again  we  rise 
in  ascending  abstraction  to  the  abstract  idea  or  concept 
of  benevolence,  virtue,  or  other  quality  as  belonging 
to  man.  As  a  percept  is  the  abstract  of  sensations, 
so  a  concept  is  the  abstract  of  percepts.  It  may 
be  conjectured — but  it  is  a  conjecture  only — that  the 
superimposed  layers  of  cells  and  fibres,  of  which  the 
convolutions  consist,  answer  to  these  increasing  com- 
plexities of  ascending  abstraction;  the  lowest  layer 
being  concerned  in  concrete  perception,  the  highest 
layer  ministering  to  the  most  abstract  thought.  No 
animal,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  is  capable  of  forming 
an  abstract  idea  any  more  than  a  young  child  is, 
although  there  is  good  reason  to  think  that  the  more 
intelligent  animals  are  able  to  form  a  few  general  ideas ; 
a  dog,  for  example,  plainly  having  not  only  an  idea  of 
a  particular  man,  such  as  its  master,  but  a  general  idea 
of  man  apart  from  any  particular  man,  and  being  pro- 
bably capable  of  conveying  that  idea  to  another  dog. 
Savages  occupy  an  intermediate  position'  between  ani- 
mals and  civilised  men  in  this  respect.  The  vocabulary 


274  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

of  many  savages,  which  we  may  study  profitably  in  order 
to  ascertain  what  thoughts  they  have,  is  very  limited,  often 
containing  only  such  phrases  as  are  required  to  describe 
the  most  striking  objects  of  nature,  and  those  which  enter 
into  the  daily  life  of  the  people.  They  have  no  abstract 
terms.  In  the  North  American  languages  a  term  suffi- 
ciently general  to  denote  an  oak-tree  is  exceptional  j 
the  Chocktaw  language  has  names  for  the  black  oak, 
white  oak,  and  red  oak,  but  no  generic  name  for  an 
oak.*  The  Tasmanians,  again,  had  no  general  term  for 
a  tree,  though  they  had  names  for  each  particular  kind 
of  tree ;  and  no  abstract  words  to  express  qualities, 
instead  of  hard,  saying  "stone-like,"  instead  of  round 
"  moon-like,"  instead  of  high  "  with  long  legs."f  The 
Bushmen,  according  to  Lichenstein,  could  not  count  be- 
yond two,  and  many  other  savages  cannot  count  beyond 
five.  The  language  of  the  Friendly  Islanders  is  said  to 
contain  no  words  expressive  of  the  higher  qualities  of 
human  nature,  such  as  virtue,  justice,  humanity,  or  of 
their  opposites,  vice,  injustice,  cruelty;  this  is  true  also 
of  the  languages  of  the  Native  Australians  and  other 
savages.  The  Bongos  of  Central  Africa  have  no  words 
for  the  most  common  of  our  abstract  ideas,  such  as 
spirit,  hope,  fear  ;  the  words  are  absolutely  wanting ;  and 
experience  shows  that  in  this  respect  other  negro  tongues 
are  not  any  better  provided.  %  The  Algonquin  language, 
one  of  the  richest  in  North  America,  contained  no  verb 
"  to  love,"  and  when  Elliot  translated  the  Bible  into 
Algonquin  in  1661,  he  was  obliged  to  coin  a  word  to  ex- 
press what  was  wanted. 

It  is  plain  then  from  these  examples  that  savages 
represent  a  much  lower  degree  of  mental  development 
than  civilised  nations  ;  they  are  like  children,  who  can- 

•  On  the  Origin  of  Civilisation.     By  Sir  John  I.ubbock. 
t  Volkerkunde.     Von  Oscar  Teschel,  p.  116. 
J  Schweinfurth's  Heart  of  Afrifa,  p.  311. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  275 

not  understand  abstractions,  and  must  be  instructed 
through  sensible  objects  or  pictures.  The  distance 
between  animals  and  savages  is  undoubtedly  far  greater 
than  that  between  savages  and  civilised  people ;  of  the 
most  intelligent  animals  only  can  we  believe  that  they 
are  capable  of  forming  a  few  general  ideas ;  and  we  may 
venture  to  assume  that  no  animal  ever  possesses  an  ab- 
stract idea.  This  destitution  is  closely  connected  with  the 
absence  of  articulate  language ;  for  as  there  are  no  actual 
objects,  no  external  realities,  corresponding  to  generaliza- 
tions, some  sort  of  language  is  necessary,  taking  the  form 
either  of  sound  to  the  ear  or  of  symbol  to  the  eye,  to  fix 
the  generalisations  in  order  that  they  may  be  objects  for 
future  revival  and  use.  Now  it  is  plain  that  animals  are 
without  these  necessary  signs  or  symbols.  Wanting 
verbal  language,  they  want  the  signs  by  which  to  denote 
and  express  such  ideas,  but  it  would  be  an  error  to  sup- 
pose that  they  are  only  destitute  of  abstract  ideas  because 
they  have  not  language ;  constituted  as  their  brains  are 
they  would  not  have  the  capacity  of  abstract  ideas,  even 
if  they  had  some  capacity  of  language,  because  their 
brains  have  not  the  complication  of  nervous  structure 
which  is  necessary  to  subserve  such  ideas ;  and  it  is 
probable  that,  were  they  possessed  of  abstract  ideas,  these 
would  not  fail  to  enforce  some  means  of  expression,  and 
that  language  would  thus  develop  with  the  development 
of  their  minds. 

It  is  important  to  take  notice  of  the  nature  of  this 
process  of  mental  development  through  ascending  de- 
grees of  abstraction,  in  order  to  estimate  the  true  value 
or  meaning  of  an  abstraction.  This  must  always  be 
sought  in  the  concrete,  by  resolving  the  higher  abstrac- 
tions into  lower  abstractions,  and  these  into  the  concrete. 
Had  this  searching  method  been  pursued,  instead  of  the 
opposite  method  of  finding  the  meaning  of  the  concrete  in 
the  abstract,  many  metaphysical  entities  would  have  died 


276  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

at  their  birth,  and  much  vain  and  empty  metaphysical  dis- 
cussion would  have  been  spared  to  the  world.  It  is 
instructive  to  take  note  how,  when  we  consider  the  nature 
and  origin  of  the  language  in  which  we  express  our  intel- 
lectual processes  and  our  feelings,  we  are  perforce  brought 
back  to  the  senses  and  movements — that  is,  to  our  means 
of  actual  contact  with  nature.  "  I  see  it,"  is  commonly 
used  to  mean  "  I  comprehend  it,"  and  in  a  similar  sense 
we  speak  of  the  eyes  of  our  understanding  being  opened. 
In  like  manner  we  grasp  or  apprehend  an  argument,  fed 
a  truth,  have  our  feelings  touched,  disrelish  or  recoil  from 
a  proposal,  are  disgusted  with  a  person's  conduct.  The 
French  say  Je  gofite  cela  in  an  intellectual  sense,  and 
with  \\\&iftj'entends  cela  means  either  "I  hear  that,"  or 
"  I  understand  that."  It  is  the  same  with  other  languages. 
The  highest  intellectual  products  betray  their  foundations 
in  sense  and  movement  by  the  terms  which  are  used  to 
denominate  them. 

Those  who  are  metaphysically-minded  have  done  with 
idea  as  they  have  done  with  sensation  ;  they  have  con- 
verted a  complex  notion  or  general  term,  summing  up  a 
great  number  of  varied  phenomena,  into  an  actual  entity, 
and  thenceforth  allowed  it  to  tyrannize  over  the  thoughts. 
It  is  a  great  and  mischievous  error  to  suppose  that  an  idea 
of  the  same  object  or  event  has  always  a  uniform  quan- 
titative and  qualitative  value ;  and  the  way  in  which  it 
is  the  custom  to  speak  of  certain  abstract  ideas,  as  if 
they  were  constant  entities  admitting  of  no  variation, 
nor  of  the  shadow  of  a  change,  is  a  remarkable  example 
of  that  self-deception  by  which  man  fondly  fools  himself, 
"with  many  words  making  nothing  understood."  An 
idea  may  be  definite,  clear,  and  adequate,  or  it  may  be 
indefinite,  obscure,  and  inadequate ;  it  by  no  means 
follows,  therefore,  that  because  the  same  name  is  given  to 
an  idea  in  two  persons,  it  has  the  same  value  in  each.  The 
meaning  which  a  child  attaches  to  a  particular  word  varies 


v.]  I1EM1SPUERICAL  GANGLIA.  377 

according  to  its  experience,  being  enlarged  or  reduced  by 
new  experiences,  until  it  becomes  precise  and  adequate.* 
Certain  ideas  will  always  have  a  different  value  in  persons 
at  a  different  stage  of  cultivation.  When  the  well-mean- 
ing traveller  or  the  ardent  missionary  thinks  to  find  in 
the  miserable  savage  the  idea  of  a  God,  he  should  take 
heed  that  he  is  not  erroneously  interpreting  the  savage 
mind  by  the  text  of  his ;  and  he  might  do  well  to  be  at 
the  pains  to  define  the  idea  which  he  supposes  himself 
to  have.  The  ideas  of  virtue  and  vice,  for  which  the 
Australian  savage  confessedly  has  no  words  in  his  lan- 
guage, cannot  be  implanted  or  organised  in  his  mind, 
until,  by  cultivation  continued  through  generations,  he 
has  been  humanised  and  civilised.  (')  Within  historical 
and  comparatively  recent  time  such  words  as  liberty, 
honour,  right,  and  the  like,  have  gradually  undergone 
perceptible  changes  in  meaning,  and  it  is  probable  that 
they  may  continue  to  do  so  in  the  time  to  come ;  for 
words,  like  creeds  and  laws,  grow,  change,  decay,  and 
die.  Ancestral  nervous  substrata  gradually  become 
obsolete,  as  instincts  in  animals  gradually  become  extinct, 
and  new  substrata  are  formed,  as  new  instincts  are  de- 
veloped in  animals,  with  changed  conditions  through 
ages. 

To  acquire  those  so-called  fundamental  ideas,  univer- 
sal intuitions,  or  categories  of  the  understanding,  of 
which  some  metaphysicians  make  so  much,  as  constant 
elements,  though  they  differ  greatly  in  value  in  different 
people,  there  is  no  other  need  but,  using  Hobbes'  words, 
"  to  be  born  a  man,  and  live  with  the  use  of  his  five 
senses."  (2)  Because  all  men  have  a  common  nature, 
have  the  same  number  and  kind  of  external  senses,  and 
because  the  nature  by  which  all  men  are  surrounded  is 

*  Beneke  lays  down  the  proposition  "  dass  unter  millionen 
Auftassungen  desselben  Gegenstandes  auch  nicht  zwei  cinander 
gleich  sind."  Pragmaththe  Psychologic,  p.  170. 


278  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  same,  therefore  are  developed  certain  ideas  which 
have  a  universal  application,  but  they  are  nowise  inde- 
pendent of  experience ;  on  the  contrary,  the  universality 
of  their  character  is  owing  to  the  very  fact  that  in  every 
experience  they  are  implicitly  suggested  or  involved,  so 
that  they  finally  become  fixed  as  endowments  in  the 
acquired  nature  or  organisation  of  the  nervous  centres ; 
conscious  acquisition  becoming  here,  as  elsewhere,  un- 
conscious faculty,  by  virtue  of  an  organic  process.  But 
their  absolute  truth,  as  expressions  of  certain  fundamental 
relations  between  man  and  nature,  is  only  guaranteed  by 
the  assumption  of  an  unchanging  persistence  of  these 
relations ;  a  new  sense  conferred  upon  him  would  en- 
tirely change  the  aspect  of  things,  and  render  necessary 
a  new  order  of  fundamental  ideas.(3) 

As  it  is  with  the  faculties  of  the  spinal  and  the  sensory 
centres,  so  it  is  with  the  faculties  of  the  ideational 
centres  :  they  are  not  innate,  but  are  developed  by 
education.  The  notion  of  innate  idea,  in  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  word,  as  connatural,  or  contemporary 
with  birth,  is  not  less  untenable  and  absurd  than  an 
innate  pregnancy.(*)  But  if  by  innate  is  only  meant  that, 
by  the  necessity  of  his  nature,  an  individual  whose  brain 
is  well  constituted  will,  when  placed  in  certain  circum- 
stances, acquire  certain  ideas,  then  all  the  phenomena 
of  a  man's  life,  bodily  and  mental,  are  just  as  innate  or 
natural.  A  civilised  person  Certainly  inherits,  by  virtue 
of  being  borrt  of  civilised  parents  in  a  civilised  country, 
a  predisposition  to  certain  modes  of  conception  and 
feeling,  just  as  he  inherits  a  predisposition  to  certain 
modes  of  perception  or  walking ;  in  other  words,  he 
inherits  certain  cerebral  substrata  which  are  ready  to 
come  into  functional  action  on  occasions  of  their 
suitable  stimuli  at  the  proper  periods  of  life.  He  can 
no  more  help  conceiving  of  his  experiences  in  a  certain 
way  than  he  can  help  perceiving  an  object  in  a  certain 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  279 

way  when  he  sees  it,  or  than  he  can  help  feeling  in  a 
certain  way  when  his  reproductive  organs  come  into 
functional  action  and  arouse  their  cerebral  representative 
substrata. 

It  is  necessary  in  fact  to  distinguish  between  what  is 
predetermined  by  the  nature  of  cerebral  structure,  as 
the  so-called  innate  ideas  are,  and  what  is  preformed,  as 
they  are  not.  The  formation  of  an  idea  is  an  organic 
evolution  in  the  appropriate  nervous  centres,  which  is 
gradually  completed  in  consequence  of  successive  ex- 
periences of  a  like  kind.  For  our  ideas  of  the  size  of 
objects,  of  their  solidity,  of  their  distance,  and  of  their 
relations  in  space,  we  are  dependent  upon  the  move- 
ments of  the  eyes,  and  in  so  far  as  these  movements 
presuppose  an  inborn  mechanism  by  which  they  are 
performed,  as  they  certainly  do,  we  may  properly  say 
that  the  individual  has  an  inborn  aptitude  or  capacity  to 
have  such  ideas.  Man,  whose  cerebral  convolutions  are 
larger,  more  complex,  and  less  symmetrical  than  those 
of  the  monkey,  has  in  like  manner  an  innate  capacity  of 
acquiring  ideas  which  the  monkey  can  never  acquire, 
because  he  has  the  nervous  substrata  necessary  to  such 
functions.  If  he  was  made  in  the  image  of  the  ape,  he 
is  assuredly  now  born  in  the  image  of  something  higher 
than  the  ape.  He  is  born  with  certain  aptitudes  which 
he  has  inherited  in  consequence  of  ancestral  accumula- 
tions, is  the  heir  of  ages  of  acquisition,  and  so  he 
learns  to  reason  as  he  learns  to  see  or  to  walk  :  when 
certain  experiences  are  made  through  the  effects  of  his 
social  and  physical  surroundings,  they  result  in  certain 
developments,  which  could  not  be  otherwise  under  the 
existing  internal  and  external  conditions.  As  the  hu- 
man brain  is  constituted,  it  cannot,  when  certain  facts 
are  apprehended,  help  forming  certain  conclusions  con- 
cerning them,  the  conclusion  being  as  involuntary  and 
irresistible  as  the  instinct  of  an  animal ;  as  Wundt  has 


a8o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

remarked,  the  inner  sense  apprehends  as  a  logical  neces- 
sity what  outer  sense  perceives  as  mechanical  connec- 
tion, that  which  is  given  to  us  by  psychological  analysis 
as  a  logical  conclusion  being  revealed  to  us  by  physio- 
logical analysis  as  physical  effect. 

What  is  the  mechanism  of  ideation,  and  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  nervous  action  which  is  its  physical  basis, 
must  for  the  present  be  entirely  conjectural.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  there  is  a  differentiation  of  parts 
in  the  grey  matter  of  the  convolutions,  corresponding  to 
differences  of  function,  and  that  the  cortical  layers  thus 
consist  of  a  multitude  of  distinct  mind-centres,  so  to 
speak,  spread  out  in  a  sort  of  vault  over  the  subordinate 
centres  with  which  they  are  connected,  directly  or  in- 
directly, by  intercommunicating  fibres,  and  spread  out 
perhaps  also  over  one  another  in  superimposed  layers. 
It  is  furthermore  extremely  probable  that  each  sense  has 
its  special  aggregate  or  grouping  of  cells  in  the  convolu- 
tions, an  area  differentiated  by  its  connections  with  the 
sensory  ganglion  beneath,  which  constitutes  its  perceptive 
centre,  and  has  towards  it,  on  the  afferent  side,  the 
same  relation  which  the  motor  areas  in  the  anterior 
convolutions  have  towards  the  subordinate  motor  ganglia 
on  the  efferent  side.  Could  we  remove  or  extirpate 
exactly  in  any  animal  the  perceptive  centre  of  any  one 
sense,  we  should  eliminate  from  its  perceptions  of  an 
object  all  those  qualities  thereof  with  which  this  sense 
was  adapted  to  bring  it  into  relation.  But,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  a  percept  is  a  product  of  the  combined 
action  of  more  senses  than  one ;  we  must  necessarily 
assume,  therefore,  the  associated  action  of  the  perceptive 
centres  of  these  other  senses. 

Perhaps  the  most  fit  conception  which  we  can  form 
of  the  mechanism  of  the  operation  of  ideation  is  that 
of  a  nervous  circuit  connecting  a  cell  or  a  group  of 
cells  of  each  perceptive  centre ;  a  current  of  molecular 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  181 

action  passing  along  this  circuit  would  be  the  percept 
or  idea  of  the  object,  and  the  current  would  naturally 
be  excited  at  any  point  of  the  circuit  to  which  the 
suitable  stimulus  could  be  applied.  Obviously,  however, 
the  only  points  at  which  this  could  take  place  would  be 
the  cell-junctions,  or  the  stations,  so  to  speak,  formed  by 
the  cell  or  group  of  cells  of  the  respective  perceptive 
centres  included  in  the  circuit  Herein  then  lies  the 
physical  interpretation  of  the  psychological  fact  that  the 
idea  of  an  object  may  be  aroused  by  any  one  of  the  sen- 
sations of  which  it  is  formed.  Furthermore,  when  an 
idea  is  thus  aroused  through  one  sense,  the  perceptions 
of  the  other  associated  senses  being  understood  or  not 
realised,  we  may  conceive  that  there  is  only  a  subactive 
state  of  their  cell-junctions,  which  may  be  supposed  to 
act  as  continuations  of  the  nervous  circuit,  rather  than  in 
the  perceptive  or  receptive  capacity  in  which  they  may 
act  when  aroused  into  more  intense  activity  by  a  stronger 
stimulus  :  we  may  regard  them  in  the  light  of  stations  on 
the  track  through  which  quick  trains  pass  without  stop- 
ping, but  at  which  other  trains  stop  to  take  in  passengers, 
and  at  which  any  train  may  be  stopped  if  necessary.  The 
supposition  is  in  entire  accordance  with  what  we  know 
concerning  the  regular  process  of  conversion  of  nervous 
actions  which  were  at  first  conscious  into  actions  that  are 
purely  automatic. 

When  we  rise  from  the  percept  to  the  concept,  from 
the  abstract  of  sensations  to  the  abstract  of  perceptions, 
from  representation  to  the  representation  of  representa- 
tions, by  combining  into  one  general  idea  that  which  is 
common  to  several  ideas  and  rejecting  that  which  is 
different  in  them,  it  will  be  necessary  to  imagine  more 
complex  groupings  of  nerve  circuits.  We  may  imagine 
a  higher  and  more  complex  circuit  in  which  the  nerve  cir- 
cuits of  the  simple  ideas  now  act  as  simple  component 
units,  taking  the  place  in  this  circuit  which  the  cell-June- 


282  TflE  PIiySlOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

tions  of  the  perceptive  centres  have  in  the  nerve  circuit  of 
the  simple  idea;  the  current  of  activity  in  the  higher  circuit 
will  then  be  aroused  by  any  one  of  these  associated  simple 
circuits,  just  as  the  current  of  activity  in  the  simple  circuit 
is  aroused  by  any  one  of  the  associated  perceptive  cen- 
tres, and  may  become,  like  it,  after  several  repetitions  of 
function,  automatic.  In  it  the  representatives  are,  so  to 
speak,  re-represented  Multiplying  these  interconnected 
plexuses  in  accordance  with  the  multiplication  of  our 
ideas,  and  associating  them,  as  we  must  do,  with  corre- 
sponding motor  plexuses  in  the  anterior  convolutions, 
we  perceive  the  necessity  of  the  infinitely  complex  me- 
chanism of  cells  and  fibres  which  form  the  cortical  layers 
of  the  hemispheres.  They  constitute  such  a  complex 
structure  as  the  complex  mental  functions  must  needs 
have ;  for  simple  structures  are  capable  only  of  simple 
functions.  We  may  perceive  also  the  reason  of  the 
necessity,  if  we  would  know  the  real  value  or  mean- 
ing of  the  most  abstract  ideas,  of  seeking  for  it  in  the 
concrete;  we  must  pass  from  the  higher  nerve-circuit 
to  the  lower  nerve-circuits  of  which  it  is  representa- 
tive, and  from  these  again  to  the  respective  perceptive 
centres  which  they  co-ordinate.  If  the  abstract  idea  be 
not  truly  representative  of  the  percept,  and  if  the  percept 
be  not  a  just  representation  of  the  object,  it  is  certain 
that  we  run  great  danger  of  losing  ourselves  in  mazes  of 
vague  and  erroneous  reasoning. 

It  is  well  known  how  difficult  a  business  it  is  to  observe 
an  object  or  event  accurately  when  we  have  a  preconceived 
idea  of  it;  the  ideational  current  answers  to,  or,  as  it  were, 
assimilates  that  which  is  like  in  the  perception,  and  be- 
comes more  active  in  consequence  ;  there  is  no  reception 
or  assimilation  of  that  which  is  unlike  in  it,  which  is  over- 
looked altogether,  or  at  any  rate  not  adequately  registered; 
and  the  result  is  that  the  induction,  which  the  perception 
really  is,  and  the  subsequent  inductions  of  the  higher 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  283 

mental  processes  are  unsound.  Most  part  of  a  percep- 
tion is  inference,  for  it  is  only  when  the  mind  actively 
co-operates  after  several  experiences  that  it  is  adequate: 
and  whether  the  inference  be  true  or  false  will  depend 
on  the  care  which  we  have  previously  taken  in  observa- 
tion to  build  it  up  soundly,  and  on  the  care  we  now  take, 
by  proper  attention  to  the  object,  to  excite  the  right 
ideational  current,  if  previous  similar  experience  has  fur- 
nished us  with  one;  and  if  not,  to  appropriate  a  new 
nerve-circuit  to  the  registration  of  that  in  the  perception 
wherein  it  differs  from  former  perceptions.  The  founda- 
tion of  right  reasoning  is  accurate  perception.* 

How  far  men  may  go  in  vain  reasonings  about  empty 
abstractions,  when  they  abandon  observation  and  divorce 
themselves  from  fact,  refusing  to  bring  their  abstractions  to 
the  test  of  experiment,  the  records  of  mental  philosophy 
yield  abundant  and  instructive  illustrations.  The  theory 
of  mind  as  a  spiritual  entity,  which,  having  an  existence 
independent  of  the  body,  uses  this  as  its  instrument,  owes 
its  origin,  as  other  metaphysical  entities  have  owed  their 
origin,  to  this  tendency  to  convert  abstractions  into  en- 
tities. Certainly,  if  I  could  perceive  and  measure  the 
intimate  and  imperceptible  currents  of  thought  of  another 
person's  brain,  as  men  may  learn  to  do  in  time  to  come, 
they  would  be  objective  realities  to  me;  but  that  is  a 

*  It  may  be  remarked  by  the  way  that  t\vo  different  classes  of 
intellect  are  marked  by  the  relative  predominance  of  the  assimilative 
or  of  the  discriminative  power  :  the  superiority  of  one  sort  of  in- 
tellect being  shown  by  the  way  in  which  it  discovers  slight  and  deli- 
cate resemblances  or  analogies  which  are  imperceptible  to  other 
minds,  and  in  the  variety  and  wealth  of  the  language  by  which  it 
expresses  them  ;  the  other  sort  of  intellect  being  distinguished  by  its 
capacity  of  recognising  and  recording  points  of  difference  which 
other  minds  fail  to  observe.  It  is  obvious  that  the  just  union  of 
both  these  faculties  is  necessary  to  the  best  observation  and  reason- 
ing :  they  lie  at  the  foundations  of  the  method  of  agreement  and  the 
method  of  difference  in  formal  reasoning. 


284  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

very  different  thing  from  what  metaphysicians  have  made 
of  them ;  and  the  only  question  for  me  would  be  whether 
they  were  as  adequately  representative — immediately 
through  presentation,  or  mediately  through  representa- 
tion of  representations — of  the  individual's  surroundings 
as  his  brain-mechanism  was  capable  of  making  them : 
the  same  question,  in  fact,  as  I  should  be  required  to  con- 
sider if  I  were  observing  in  a  similar  way  the  brain- 
currents  of  an  ape  or  a  frog,  or  if,  being  an  accomplished 
musician,  I  were  watching  another  person's  musical  per- 
formance in  order  to  mark  whether  he  brought  out  fully 
the  capacities  of  the  instrument  on  which  he  was  playing. 
There  is  a  question  the  answer  to  which  one  ought 
perhaps  to  endeavour  to  make  more  clear  than  it  has 
been  made  thus  far — namely,  Of  what  precise  .part  or  pro- 
cess in  a  reflex  cerebral  function  is  idea  the  mental  cor- 
relate ?  There  is  the  sensory  impression ;  there  is  the 
motor  outcome ;  and  between  them  there  is  the  cerebral 
track  of  the  nervous  current :  of  which  stage  then  of  the 
nervous  process  is  the  idea  strictly  the  conscious  corre- 
late ?  The  correct  answer  probably  is  that  the  entire 
process  is  necessary  to  the  formation  of  the  idea  in  the 
first  instance,  but  that  when  its  substrata  have  been  de- 
finitely organised,  a  mental  representation,  faint  or  vivid, 
of  either  the  first  or  the  last  stage,  in  connection  with  the 
cerebral  intermediate  process,  may  suffice;  this  mental 
representation  consisting  in  an  internal  excitation  of  the 
proper  perceptive  or  motor  centre  in  the  convolutions. 
A  faint  or  nascent  sensory  perception  may  suffice  in  the 
one,  it  may  be  supposed,  as  a  faint  or  nascent  motor 
percept  or  intuition  may  in  the  other.  And  if  we  go  on 
to  reflect  upon  our  ideas,  we  shall  notice  that  with  some 
the  sensory  element  plainly  predominates,  so  that  we 
have  the  image  vividly  before  our  mental  eye ;  with 
others,  the  motor  intuition  is  predominant,  so  that  the 
word  by  which  we  denote  the  idea  engages  conscious- 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  285 

ness ;  while  with  other  ideas  of  a  more  abstract  character 
the  intermediate  cerebral  factor  is  chiefly  in  operation, 
and  little  attention  is  paid  to  image  or  name.  In  the 
latter  case  we  allow  thought  to  call  up  thought  without 
bringing  it  back  to  its  sensory  basis  or  to  its  motor  ex- 
pression, although  at  the  same  time  we  feel  it  necessary 
to  do  both  when  we  would  positively  satisfy  ourselves 
that  we  have  a  clear,  definite  and  genuine  idea.  It  will 
be  noticed  also  in  this  relation  that  we  can  intensify  an 
idea  either  from  the  sensory  or  the  motor  pole  of  its 
cerebral  process — either  by  presentation  and  vivid  repre- 
sentation of  the  object,  or  by  such  active  intuition  of  the 
word  denoting  it  as  we  get  by  repeating  it  to  ourselves  in- 
ternally in  a  sort  of  mental  whisper  or  by  uttering  it  aloud. 
In  this  way,  .when  our  attention  is  prone  to  wander  from 
a  train  of  reflection,  we  hold  it  to  its  task  by  emphatic 
internal  repetition  of  the  words  or  the  motor  expressions 
of  the  ideas  concerned,  or  by  vivid  sensory  representa- 
tion of  what  we  are  thinking  about.  It  would  appear 
then  that  the  idea  is  really  the  correlate  of  the  entire 
excito-motor  process  in  the  convolutions,  and  that  when 
either  the  sensory  or  motor  element  seems  to  be  wanting, 
the  reason  is  because  it  is  understood ;  being  in  such  a 
state  of  faint  or  nascent  excitation  that  it  scarcely  rises 
into  consciousness. 

In  using  the  physiological  term  'excito-motor'  to 
describe  the  process  which  takes  place  in  the  convolu- 
tions during  ideation,  and  in  referring  it  to  the  same 
category  as  the  processes  which  take  place  in  the  lower 
nerve-centres,  it  behoves  us  to  take  heed  that  we  do  not 
overlook  the  complex  nature  of  the  nervous  substrata 
which  are  subservient  to  it.  Reflex  function  is  merely  a 
name,  which  neither  conjures  away  difficulties  magically 
nor  furnishes  an  adequate  explanation  of  them  ;  indeed, 
so  far  as  it  pretends  to  be  an  explanation,  it  is  dis- 
tinctly an  inadequate  one,  inasmuch  as  there  is  a  great 


•86  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

deal  more  in  mental  reflection  than  a  simple  reflection  of 
energy  through  the  supreme  centres  from  an  afferent  on 
to  an  efferent  nerve.  The  central  nervous  substrata  con- 
tain in  their  structure,  first,  a  vast  original  capacity,  and, 
secondly,  a  vast  acquired  capacity :  they  embody,  as  it 
were,  a  certain  pre  established  harmony  between  their 
functions  and  the  environment,  which  has  been  inherited, 
and  a  certain  established  harmony,  which  has  been  ac- 
quired by  education  and  experience :  they  capitalise  in 
a  measure  the  acquisitions  of  the  race,  of  ancestors, 
and  of  the  individual.  We  cannot  in  the  least  com- 
prehend how  it  happens,  but  we  cannot  doubt,  that  the 
individual  inherits  in  his  cerebral  "substrata  not  only 
parental  but  ancestral  qualities  of  mind  which  are  ready 
to  come  into  function  at  different  periods  of  life  ;  so  that 
the  qualities  of  one  ancestor  may  discover  themselves 
more  evidently  at  one  period,  and  those  of  another 
ancestor  more  evidently  at  another  period,  of  his  life. 
Reverting  to  the  comparison  which  was  previously  made 
between  the  nerve- cell  and  the  germ-cell,  and  taking  it 
to  be  probable  that  the  former,  like  the  latter,  contains 
in  latent  form  the  potential  qualities  of  many  ancestors, 
male  and  female,  we  may  understand  that  it  should,  like 
it,  when  placed  under  suitable  conditions,  display  them 
in  its  development.  We  may  understand  also  how  it  is 
that  one  part  of  the  convolutions  can  so  easily  take  on 
the  functions  of  another  part,  if  we  suppose,  as  we  may 
reasonably  do,  that  the  nerve-cells,  like  the  germ-cells,  are 
endowed  with  very  similar  if  not  identical  properties,  and 
are  therefore  equivalent  before  they  begin  to  function  and 
to  undergo  that  differentiation  which,  if  not  determined 
by  original  differences  of  properties,  is  involved  in  develop- 
ment under  different  conditions.  It  has  been  already 
shown  that  they  exist  in  the  convolutions  in  such  count- 
less numbers  that  it  is  probable  only  a  small  proportion 
of  them  is  ever  utilised  However  that  may  be,  it  is 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  287 

evident  that  when  a  stimulus  excites  the  function  of  an 
ideational  track  for  the  first  time,  it  does  not  merely 
excite  a  movement  which  passes  along  it  without  addition 
of  energy,  but  awakens  echoes  that  sound  from  we  know 
not  how  far  back  in  the  past. 

Having  said  thus  much  concerning  the  nature  of  ideas 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  are  acquired,  I  proceed 
next  to  indicate  the  different  ways  in  which  observation 
shows  that  the  energy  of  an  idea  may  be  discharged  : 
having  considered  its  formation,  it  now  remains  to  con- 
sider it  in  actual  energy. 

(a)  The  reflex  action  or  reaction  of  an  ideational  nerve- 
current  is  downwards  upon  the  motor  centres,  and  thus 
gives  rise  to  what  has  been  called  ideomotor  movement.*(5) 
The  energy  may  be  exerted  either  upon  the  involuntary 
or  upon  the  voluntary  muscles ;  in  the  latter  case,  taking 

*  "To  prove  that  Ideas,  as  well  as  Sensations,  are  the  cause  of 
muscular  actions,  it  is  necessary  to  make  choice  of  cases  in  which  the 
idea  is  in  no  danger  of  being  confounded  with  that  state  of  mind 
called  the  Will.  And  hardly  any  case  will  answer  this  condition, 
except  ccme  of  those  which  are  held  to  be  involuntary,  for  the  Idea 
itself  never  can  be  very  clearly  distinguished  from  the  Will ." — J. 
MILL,  op.  cit.  p.  265.  He  instances  yawning  on  seeing  some  one 
yawn,  the  infectious  power  of  convulsions,  laughter,  sobbing,  the 
swallowing  of  saliva,  if  assured  that  you  cannot.  "It  seems, 
therefore,  to  be  established  by  a  simple  induction,  that  muscular 
actions  follow  ideas,  as  invariable  antecedent  and  consequent,  in 
other  words,  as  cause  and  effect ;  that,  whenever  we  have  obtained 
a  command  over  the  ideas,  we  have  also  obtained  a  command  over 
the  motions  ;  and  that  we  cannot  perform  associate  contractions  of 
several  muscles,  till  we  have  established,  by  repetition,  the  ready 
association  of  the  ideas." — Ibid.  p.  274. 

t  "The  idea  of  a  particular  motion,"  says  Miiller,  "determines  a 
current  of  nervous  action  towards  the  necessary  muscles,  and  gives 
rise  to  the  motion  independently  of  the  will. "  Again,  of  expectation, 
he  says — "  It  may  be  stated,  as  a  general  fact,  that  any  state  of  the 
body  which  is  conceived  to  be  approaching,  and  which  is  expected 
with  certain  confidence  and  certainty  of  its  occurrence,  will  be  very 
prone  to  ensue  as  the  mere  result  of  that  idea." 


iSS  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

place  either  with  consciousness  or  without  consciousness. 
The  idea  that  the  bowels  will  act  may  notably  sometimes 
so  affect  their  involuntary  peristaltic  movements  as  to 
produce  evacuation  of  them  ;  the  idea  that  vomiting  must 
take  place,  when  a  qualmish  feeling  exists,  will  certainly 
hasten  vomiting ;  and  there  is  a  very  remarkable  instance 
in  the  Philosophical  Transactions  of  a  man  who  could  for 
a  time  stop  the  motions  of  his  heart  by  composing  him- 
self, and  then  either  conceiving  vividly  or  directly  willing 
what  was  to  happen.*  (6)  These  are  examples  of  the  in- 
fluence of  idea  upon  the  involuntary  muscles,  and  they 
accord  with  what  has  been  previously  said  of  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  organic  nerve-centres  to  the  cerebro- 
spinal  system.  Some  people  even  are  able,  through  a 
vivid  idea  of  shuddering,  or  of  something  creeping  over 
their  skin,  to  produce  a  cutis  anserina  or  goose's  skin : 
the  immediate  effect  of  the  idea  in  this  case,  however, 
is  probably  to  excite  the  appropriate  sensation,  which 
thereupon  gives  rise  to  the  sequent  phenomena. 

Examples  of  the  action  of  idea  upon  our  voluntary 
muscles  are  witnessed  in  every  hour  of  our  waking  life. 
Very  few,  in  fact,  of  the  familiar  acts  of  a  day  call  the 
will  into  action  :  when  not  sensori-motor  they  are  usually 
prompted  by  ideas.  Most  of  the  earlier  actions  of  child- 
ren are  prompted  by  ideas  and  feelings  which,  excited  by 
suggestions  from  without,  immediately  pass  into  move- 
ments. In  the  adult,  it  sometimes  happens  that  without 
any  intervention  of  the  will,  or  even  in  direct  defiance  cf 
the  will,  an  idea  discharges  itself  in  movement  or  produces 
some  other  effect  upon  the  body.  The  suddenly  excited 

*  "There  is  an  instance  told  in  the  Philosophical  Transactions  of 
a  man  who  could  for  a  time  stop  the  motions  of  his  heart  when  he 
pleased  ;  and  Mr.  D.  has  often  told  me  he  could  so  far  increase  the 
peristaltic  motion  of  his  bowels  by  voluntary  efforts  as  to  produce 
an  evacuation  by  a  stool  at  anytime  in  half-an-hour." — Zoonomia, 
vol.  i.  p.  39. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  289 

idea  of  the  ludicrous,  for  example,  causes  involuntary 
laughter;  the  idea  of  an  insult,  a  quick  movement  of 
retaliation;  the  idea  of  a  beautiful  woman,  a  glow  of 
amatorial  passion ;  the  idea  of  a  great  impending  danger, 
or  of  a  sudden  terrible  affliction,  serious  or  even  fatal 
disturbance  of  the  organic  life;  the  idea  of  an  object, 
an  actual  hallucination  sometimes.  In  the  phenomena 
of  electro-biology  or  hypnotism,  the  mind  of  the  patient 
is  possessed  with  the  ideas  which  the  operator  suggests, 
so  that  his  body  becomes  an  automatic  machine,  set  in 
motion  by  them.  Every  one's  experience  will  recall  to 
him  occasions  on  which  an  idea  excited  in  his  mind  could 
not  be  dismissed  therefrom  by  the  will,  and  perhaps 
would  not  let  him  rest  until  he  had  realised  it  in  action, 
even  though  such  realisation  appeared  to  his  judgment 
inadvisable.  But  the  point  on  which  I  would  lay  stress 
here  is,  that  such  ideomotor  movements  may  take  place, 
not  only  without  any  intervention  of  the  will,  but  also 
without  consciousness;  they  are  automatically  accom- 
plished, like  the  actions  of  the  sleep-walker,  in  obedience 
to  an  idea  or  a  series  of  ideas  of  which  there  is  no  active 
consciousness. 

It  may  seem  paradoxical  to  assert,  not  merely  that 
ideas  may  exist  in  the  mind  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  them — which  every  one  admits  that  in  their 
dormant,  latent,  or  statical  condition  they  may — but  that 
an  idea,  or  a  train  of  associated  ideas,  may  be  quickened 
into  action,  and  actuate  movements,  without  itself  being 
attended  to.  But  those  who  reflect  upon  their  actions 
will  acknowledge  that  it  is  unquestionably  so  :  a  great 
part  of  the  chain  of  our  waking  thoughts,  and  of  the 
series  of  our  daily  actions,  never  is  attended  to  ;  at 
first  consciously  acquired,  they  have  now  become  au- 
tomatic, the  effect  being  that  which  first  arouses  con- 
sciousness, if  it  be  aroused  at  all.  Persons  who  have  a 
habit  of  talking  to  themselves  are  generally  unaware  that 


290  TUE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

they  are  talking,  and  yet  they  are  performing  both  asso- 
ciated ideas  and  associated  movements;  and  one  who 
has  a  lively  interest  in  some  performance  which  he  is 
watching  intently,  can  hardly  forbear  making  ludicrous 
movements  of  imitation.  The  phenomena  of  table-turn- 
ing, spirit-writing,  divining  with  the  magnetic  rod,  and 
the  like,  when  they  are  not  impostures,  illustrate  in  like 
manner  the  unconscious  action  of  idea  upon  movement, 
as  do  also  the  sudden  cures  of  supposed  paralysis  which 
have  sometimes  been  effected  by  an  impressive  command 
to  rise  and  walk  from  one  who  claims  a  miraculous  power 
of  healing,  or  by  the  application  of  some  instrument 
alleged  and  believed  to  have  marvellous  healing  virtues. 
In  such  cases  the  idea  of  the  movement,  the  belief  that 
it  will  take  place,  is  truly  the  movement  in  the  inner- 
most ;  it  is  the  current  of  nervous  action  which,  when 
transmitted  along  the  proper  nerves,  will  become  the  ex- 
ternal movement.  And  it  is  not  without  interest  to  note 
how  in  some  of  these  instances  the  vivid  idea  of  a  move- 
ment may  produce  a  more  powerful  effect  than  a  deli- 
berate exertion  of  will  could  do ;  for  the  idea  represents 
undivided  energy  operating  in  a  definite  channel,  no  other 
ideas  or  feelings  intervening  to  produce  doubt  or  irresolu- 
tion, while  there  is  not,  from  want  of  a  proper  training  of 
mind,  the  power  of  effective  co-ordination  of  its  various 
energies  into  a  complete  and  definite  act  of  will.  Indeed, 
the  miraculous  cures  of  paralysis  which  are  from  time  to 
time  recorded,  take  place  commonly  in  hysterical  persons 
whose  malady  is  a  paralysis  of  will  rather  than  a  paralysis 
of  muscle. 

It  is  surprising  how  uncomfortable  a  person  may  be 
made  by  the  obscure  notion  of  something  which  he  ought 
to  have  said  or  done  on  some  occasion,  but  did  not  say 
or  do,  and  which  he  cannot  for  the  life  of  him  remember. 
There  is  a  dim  feeling  of  some  impulse  unsatisfied,  an 
effort,  as  it  were,  of  the  lost  idea  to  get  into  conscious- 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  291 

ness ;  the  activity  thereof  not  being  sufficient  to  excite 
distinct  consciousness,  but  sufficient  to  react  upon  the 
unconscious  mental  life,  and  to  produce  a  feeling  of  dis- 
comfort or  vague  unrest,  which  is  relieved  directly  the 
idea  bursts  into  consciousness.  Certainly  the  tone  of 
mind  at  different  times  is  much  affected  by  obscure  sub- 
active  ideational  currents  which  do  not  reach  the  level  of 
distinct  consciousness,  not  otherwise  than  as  there  are  un- 
dulations constantly  striking  upon  the  senses  of  sight  and 
hearing  which  are  too  feeble  to  excite  definite  sensations 
of  sight  or  sound.  Then,  again,  when  an  active  idea 
has  once  taken  fast  hold  of  consciousness,  how  hard 
a  matter  it  is  to  dismiss  it !  Some  weak-minded  persons 
cannot  do  so  until  they  have  expended  its  force  in  suit- 
able action  :  let  a  hysterical  woman  get  a  vivid  idea  of 
some  action  that  she  must  do  or  cannot  do,  the  idea  be- 
comes a  fate  which  she  must  sooner  or  later  obey,  not 
otherwise  than  as  a  person  who  is  in  a  state  of  so-called 
mesmerism  or  hypnotism  is  dominated  by  the  idea  which 
the  operator  suggests.  Let  a  quick-tempered  man  con- 
ceive a  great  insult  suddenly  done  to  him,  in  a  moment, 
without  any  intervention  of  the  will,  the  idea  reacts  upon 
the  muscles  of  his  body,  and  produces  more  or  less 
general  tension  of  them.  Let  a  man  engaged  in  a  fight 
or  a  race  get  the  idea  that  he  will  be  beaten,  his  muscular 
energy  is  weakened,  and  he  is  already  half  vanquished  : 
let  another  have  the  idea  that  he  will  win,  his  muscular 
energy  and  skill  are  augmented,  and  he  is  already  half 
victor. 

(£)  The  ideational  nerve-current  may  operate  down- 
wards not  only  upon  the  motor  nuclei,  but  also  upon  the 
sensory  ganglia.  As  the  idea  is  excited  into  activity  by 
the  impression  on  the  senses,  so  it  may  in  turn  react  back- 
wards upon  the  sensory  centres,  giving  rise  even  undei 
certain  circumstances  to  illusions  and  hallucinations.  "  I 
am  confident,"  John  Hunter  said,  "  that  I  can  fix  my 


29*  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

attention  to  any  part  until  I  have  a  sensation  in  that  part." 
The  idea  of  a  nauseous  taste  or  of  a  putrid  stench  may 
excite  the  sensation  to  such  a  degree  as  to  produce  vomit- 
ing ;  and  the  sight  of  a  person  about  to  run  a  sharp  in- 
strument over  glass  will  set  the  teeth  on  edge.  The 
images  of  dreams,  as  Spinoza  remarked,  are  sometimes 
actually  visible  for  a  short  time  after  the  eyes  are  open  on 
awaking.  "  On  awaking  one  morning  out  of  a  distress- 
ing dream,  just  as  day  was  breaking,  the  images  I  had 
had  present  to  me  in  my  dream  floated  before  my  eyes  as 
distinctly  as  if  they  had  been  actual  objects.  One  form 
in  particular,  that  of  a  leprous  negro,  whom  I  had  never 
seen  in  my  life,  presented  itself  to  me  with  singular  dis- 
tinctness, but  faded  and  in  a  great  measure  disappeared 
when,  to  turn  my  thoughts  to  something  else,  I  fixed  my 
eyes  on  a  book ;  as  soon,  however,  as  I  allowed  my  eyes 
to  wander  from  the  page  the  vision  of  the  blackamoor 
presented  itself  with  the  same  vividness  as  before.  By 
and  bye  it  began  to  fade,  and  anon  it  disappeared  en- 
tirely." *  "  The  celebrated  Baron  von  Swieten,"  says  Dr. 
Darwin,  who  illustrates  this  kind  of  ideational  action  by 
many  instances,  "was  present  when  the  putrid  carcase 
of  a  dead  dog  exploded  with  prodigious  stench ;  and, 
some  years  afterwards,  accidentally  riding  along  the  same 
road,  he  was  thrown  into  the  same  sickness  and  vomit- 
ing by  the  idea  of  the  stench  as  he  had  before  experi- 
enced from  the  perception  of  it." 

The  action  of  idea  upon  sensory  ganglia  is  a  constant 

*  Letter  to  P.  Balling.  See  WILLIS'S  Translation  ofSpinoza)  p.  289. 

I  have  on  several  occasions  experienced  this  persistence  of  dream- 
images  on  awaking  in  the  night  out  of  a  dream,  notably  after 
tours  in  North  Wales  and  Switzerland,  in  which  I  had  made 
mountain  ascents.  Pursued  in  dreams  by  vivid  images  of  mountain 
peaks  and  precipices,  and  steep  and  difficult  paths,  I  could  not,  for 
a  little  while  after  awaking,  realise  that  I  was  safe  in  bed,  for  I  con- 
tinued to  see  the  images  of  the  dream,  and  was  obliged  to  put  my 
hands  out  and  grasp  each  side  of  the  bed  to  convince  myself. 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  293 

part  of  our  mental  life ;  for  the  co-operation  of  sensory 
activity  is,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  necessary  to  the 
completeness  of  the  idea — to  clear  conception  and  repre- 
sentation. -In  order  to  form  a  distinct  and  definite  concep- 
tion of  what  is  not  present  to  sense,  we  are  compelled  to 
form  some  sort  of  image  of  it  in  the  mind ;  the  sense  of 
sight,  which  is  anatomically  in  most  extensive  connection 
with  the  cerebral  ganglia,  affording  us  the  greatest  assistance 
in  this  regard.  Men  differ  much  in  the  power  which  they 
have  of  thus  rendering  an  idea  sensible.  Goethe  could 
call  up  the  image  of  an  object  at  will,  and  make  it  undergo 
various  transformations  before  his  eyes  in  accordance 
with  the  changes  which  he  conceived  in  it ;  and  Shelley 
appears  to  have  been,  on  one  occasion  at  least,  the  victim 
of  positive  hallucinations  generated  by  his  ideas.  But 
the  most  remarkable  instance  of  a  habit  of  seeing  his  own 
ideas  as  actual  images  was  afforded  by  the  engraver, 
William  Blake — "  You  have  only  to  work  up  imagination 
to  the  state  of  vision,  and  the  thing  is  done,"  was  his  own 
account  of  the  genesis  of  his  visions.*  To  render  defi- 

*  Dickens  used  to  al'ege  that  he  heard  his  characters  actually 
speak  to  him.  "  Mes  personnages  imaginaires  m'ecrit  le  plus  exact 
et  le  plus  lucide  des  romanciers  modernes,  m'affectent,  me  poursuivent, 
ou  plutot  c'est  moi  qui  suis  en  eux.  Quand  j'ecrivais  1'empoisonne- 
ment  d'Emma  Bonary,  j'avais  si  bien  le  gofit  d'arsenic  dans  la 
boufhe,  j'etais  si  bien  empoisonne  moi-meme,  que  je  me  suis  donne 
deux  indigestions  coup  sur  coup,  deux  indigestions  tres  reelles,  car 
j'ai  vomi  tout  mon  diner." — TAINE,  De  f  Intelligence,  vol.  i.,  p.  94. 
The  more  striking,  as  arsenic  has  a  scarce  appreciable  taste.  "  Dr. 
Ferrier  mentions  of  himself  that,  when  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  if  he 
had  been  viewing  any  interesting  object  in  the  course  of  the  day,  as 
a  romantic  ruin,  a  fine  seat,  or  a  review  of  troops,  as  soon  as  evening 
come  the  whole  scene  was  brought  before  him  with  a  brilliancy  equal 
to  whit  it  possesses!  in  daylight,  and  remained  visible  for  some 
minutes." — ABERCKOMRIE,  On  the Intellectual Powers.  Sir  I.  Newton 
could  recall  an  ocular  spectrum  of  the  sun  when  he  went  into  the 
dark  and  directed  his  mind  intensely,  "as  when  a  man  looks 
earnestly  to  see  a  thing  which  is  difficult  to  be  seen."  From  these 
14 


294  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

nite  the  creations  of  the  imagination,  and  to  give  fit  ex- 
pression to  them,  they  must  be  accompanied  by  some 
sensorial  representation.  The  great  writers  whose  vivid 
descriptions  of  character,  scenery,  or  events  hold  our 
attention  and  stir  our  feelings,  have  this  power  in  high 
degree ;  they  create  for  themselves  a  world  of  sense  by 
the  influence  of  idea,  and  then  strive  to  present  vividly  to 
us  what  they  have  thus  represented  to  their  own  minds. 

Natural  endowments  being  equal,  those  writers  who  have 
the  greatest  number  of  residua  stored  up  in  consequence 
of  much  and  varied  experience,  are  best  qualified  to  call 
up  vivid  images,  and  best  qualified  to  call  up  such  as  are 
truly  representative  of  nature ;  whilst  those  who  are 
wanting  in  experience,  or  who  have  not  sufficiently  cul- 

recollected  images  of  objects  of  sense,  which  the  reason  duly  dis- 
tinguishes from  the  realities  around,  we  meet  with  examples  marking 
a  gradual  transition  to  those  spectral  images  or  illusions  which  can- 
not be  distinguished  from  realities,  which,  in  iact,  compel  belief,  and 
excite  emotions  and  actions  in  accordance  with  their  character. 
Abercrombie  mentions  the  case  of  a  gentleman  who  was  all  his  life 
affected  by  the  appearance  of  spectral  figures.  Meeting  a  friend  in 
the  street,  he  could  not  satisfy  himself  sometimes  whether  he  really 
saw  the  individual  or  a  spectral  figure,  unless  by  touching  the  figure 
or  listening  to  the  sound  of  his  footsteps.  He  had  also  the  power 
of  calling  up  spectral  figures  at  will,  by  directing  his  attention 
steadily  to  the  conceptions  of  his  own  mind,  whether  figures  or  scenes 
he  had  seen,  or  a  composition  of  the  imagination.  "  But  though  he 
has  the  power  of  producing  the  illusion,  he  has  no  power  of  banish- 
ing it ;  and  when  he  has  called  up  any  particular  spectral  figure  or 
scene,  he  can  never  say  how  long  it  may  continue  to  haunt  him." 
An  intense  mental  impression  may  produce  such  illusion  involun- 
tarily. A  step  farther,  and  there  is  neither  the  power  of  calling  up 
an  illusion  at  will— for  it  rises  in  spite  of  the  will — nor  of  distinguish- 
ing it  from  realities,  nor  of  dismissing  it  at  will.  It  is  excited  by 
some  morbid  cause,  confounds  itself  with  realities,  compels  belief, 
and  dominates  the  conduct.  This  is  the  case  with  those  insane 
persons  who  hear  voices  continually  speaking  to  or  of  them,  reply- 
ing to  their  unuttered  thoughts,  suggesting  blasphemous  or  obscene 
ideas,  and  reviling  or  threatening  them. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  295 

tivated  observation,  are  sure  to  become  visionary,  vague, 
and  unreal.  Even  in  matters  of  scientific  research,  the 
scientific  imagination  by  which  hypotheses  are  succes- 
sively framed  until  a  fit  one  is  obtained,  its  verification 
completed,  and  a  discovery  thus  made,  is  based  upon  a 
previous  careful  training  of  the  senses  in  scientific  obser- 
vation, and  works  by  means  of  sensory  representations. 
Natural  endowments  not  being  equal,  however,  we  then 
perceive  the  wide  difference  which  there  is  between  one 
who  has  adequate  ideation  and  one  who  has  not  The 
latter,  in  describing  character,  scenery,  or  events,  will  give 
a  tedious  picture  characterised  by  minute  industry  and 
overwrought  detail,  in  which  there  is  no  due  subordina- 
tion of  parts,  no  organic  unity  of  idea — in  which  truly 
soul  is  wanting — and  from  which,  therefore,  no  one  can 
carry  away  a  true  idea  of  the  whole  :  unpregnant  of  his 
subject,  he  has  gone  about  to  give  a  photographic  copy 
or  a  minute  delineation  of  what  cannot  be  photographed ; 
he  has  laboured  to  realize  the  appearance  until  at  last 
only  something  unreal  remains.*  The  former,  on  the 
other  hand,  produces,  by  virtue  of  the  plastic  power  of 
idea,  a  picture  in  which  the  unessential  is  suppressed,  the 
essential  extracted  and  moulded  into  an  organic  unity,  in 
which  due  subordination  and  co-ordination  of  parts  pre- 
vail, and  from  which,  therefore,  a  true  idea  of  the  whole 
may  be  educed;  truly  comprehending  or  grasping  his 
subject,  he  has  in  fact  idealised  the  sensory  perceptions, 

*  "  For  facts,"  Lord  Shaft esbury  observes  in  his  Characteristics, 
"  unably  related,  though  with  the  greatest  sincerity  and  good  faith, 
may  prove  the  worst  sort  of  deceit  :  and  mere  lies,  judiciously  com- 
posed, can  teach  us  the  truth  of  things  beyond  any  manner.  But  to 
amuse  ourselves  with  such  authors  as  neither  know  how  to  lye,  nor 
tell  ttuth,  discovers  a  taste  which  methinks  no  one  should  be  apt  to 
envy.  The  greatest  critic  says  of  the  greatest  of  poets,  when  he 
extols  him  the  highest,  that  above  all  others  he  understood  how  to 
lye:  A«5<5a(rxe  8f  paAiara  "O/iijpos  KO!  TOWS  fiAAovs  vofuSij  Af)«<» 


296  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

producing  the  illusion  of  a  higher  reality,  and  so  displayed 
a  real  development  of  nature. 

This  sort  of  difference  between  men  is  not  less  evi- 
dent in  scientific  working.  One  man  records,  with  a 
praiseworthy  but  tedious  industry,  the  unconnected  im- 
pressions made  upon  his  senses,  and  never  gets  further 
than  that :  fondly  thinking  that  he  sees  with  his  eye, 
and  not  through  it,  he  is  very  much  like  one  who 
should,  were  he  set  to  describe  the  sun  for  the  first 
time,  delineate  with  great  care  and  exactness  its  ap- 
pearance to  the  eye,  and  rest  content  for  the  future 
with  this  sensory  representation  of  it.  The  other  and 
truer  man  of  science  succeeds  in  combining,  by  means 
of  the  organising  power  of  idea,  the  scattered  impres- 
sions made  upon  the  senses,  is  able  by  comparison  to 
complement  or  correct  the  impression  made  on  a  particu- 
lar sense,  and  to  form  to  himself  a  true  image  of  the  sun, 
not  as  a  mere  disc  of  fire,  but  as  an  immense  central 
body  moving  through  space  with  its  attendant  planetary 
system.  Only  those  who  are  destitute  of  idea  would 
dream  of  rejecting  entirely  the  aid  of  idea  in  scientific 
inquiries. 

These  observations  will  not  be  a  useless  digression  if 
they  serve  to  teach  how  essential  to  the  completeness  of 
conception  is  the  functional  action  of  the  sensory  ganglia ; 
how  much  our  intellectual  development  depends,  not 
only  upon  the  cultivation  of  careful  habits  of  observation, 
but  also  upon  the  co-operation  of  the  sensory  centres  in 
the  subsequent  intellectual  action.  The  excitation  and 
cultivation  of  the  sensorial  centres  are  necessary  antece- 
dents, in  the  order  of  mental  development,  to  the  activity 
of  the  ideational  centres ;  and  the  ideational  centre  in 
turn  performs  its  complete  function  in  the  formation  of  a 
distinct  conception  by  reacting  downwards  upon  the  sen- 
sory centres.  This  secondary  intervention  of  the  sensory 
ganglia  is  not  peculiar  to  man,  being,  perhaps,  more  evi- 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  397 

dcntly  displayed  in  some  of  the  lower  animals  in  which 
the  ideas  are  so  much  fewer  and  so  much  Jess  complex 
than  in  man.  When  the  dog  scents  the  rabbit,  and  begins 
to  scratch  furiously  at  the  burrow,  it  is  plain  that  the 
sense  of  smell  has  excited  either  directly  the  visual  image 
of  the  rabbit,  or  rather,  as  the  'dreaming  of  the  dog  would 
seem  to  indicate,  the  idea  of  the  rabbit,  which  idea  there- 
upon calls  up  the  appropriate  visual  image.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark  in  this  relation,  how  singularly  effective  in  man 
the  sense  of  smell  is  in  recalling  vividly  the  ideas  and 
images  of  forgotten  scenes  and  places :  there  are  certain 
smells  which  never  fail  to  bring  back  to  me  instantly  and 
vividly  scenes  of  my  boyhood,  though  I  was  not  in  the 
least  thinking  of  them  at  the  time. 

The  reaction  of  ideas  upon  the  senses  is  again  very 
notable  in  dreams :  for  my  part,  when  dreaming,  I 
sometimes  see  pages  of  printed  matter,  which  I  read 
with  a  conscious  effort  and,  as  it  were,  a  straining  of 
the  eyes,  and  understand;  nay,  more,  I  may  awake, 
recognise  it  to  be  a  dream,  close  my  eyes,  go  in- 
stantly to  sleep  again,  and  resume  the  reading,  continu- 
ing it  by  an  effort,  and  conscious  that  the  whole  thing 
will  vanish  if  my  attention  be  withdrawn.  At  one  time 
or  another,  most  persons  must  have  been  awakened  sud- 
denly by  the  distinctly  heard  voice  of  a  dream-image.  In 
insanity,  when  the  nerve-centres  are  disordered  and  their 
relations  disturbed,  actual  hallucinations  of  a  sense,  such 
as  cannot  be  corrected  by  the  evidence  of  unaffected 
senses,  or  by  reflection,  are  sometimes  due  to  the  influence 
of  morbid  ideas.  This  disordered  action  is,  after  all, 
only  an  exaggeration  of  a  process  which  is  natural  in  our 
mental  life.  The  idea  cannot  receive  its  stimulus  directly 
from  the  external  world,  nor  can  it  react  directly  upon 
the  external  world  :  both  in  its  origin  and  in  its  expres- 
sion are  the  senses  concerned. 

The  idea  of  a  sensation,  which  we  have  seen  to  be 


298  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

sometimes  so  vivid  as  to  become  an  actual  hallucination, 
is  no  doubt  an  internal  current  or  movement  which  is  an 
imperfect  reproduction  of  the  movement  caused  by  the 
external  impression ;  it  will  naturally  therefore  increase 
the  susceptibility  to  such  impression,  forasmuch  as  the 
movement  in  the  nervous  centre  occasioned  thereby 
will  be  more  easily  and  completely  excited  in  conse- 
quence of  being  already  in  partial  action;  in  other 
words,  susceptibility  will  be  increased  by  attention.*  The 
madman  who  has  the  delusion  that  poison  is  secretly 
put  into  his  food,  or  that  persons  in  the  streets  say 
offensive  things  to  him  or  of  him,  readily  tastes  the 
poison  which  is  not  there,  or  misinterprets  innocent 
words  to  fit  his  thoughts ;  the  lover  "  sees  Helen's  beauty 
in  a  brow  of  Egypt;"  and  the  poet  finds  his  moods 
of  feeling  in  the  aspects  of  nature.  The  external  im- 
pression easily  produces  the  feeling  which  each  is  prepared 
to  feel.  For  the  same  reason  expectant  idea  is  a  potent 
cause  of  hallucination.  The  man  who  sees  a  ghost  is  he 
who  expects  to  see  one.  In  making  his  experiments  on 
hypnotism,  the  phenomena  of  which  are  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  of  mesmerism,  Braid  found  that  if  sus- 
ceptible persons  believed  that  something  was  being  done, 
although  they  did  not  see  it,  by  which  they  were  to  be 
affected,  they  would  become  affected,  while,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  most  expert  hypnotist  might  exert  all  his  en- 
deavours in  vain  if  the  person  did  not  expect  it  He 
relates  the  case  of  a  lady  who,  when  told  to  look  intently 
at  a  horse-shoe  magnet  in  a  dark  closet,  saw  nothing  ;  but 
when  told  to  look  again  and  she  would  see  sparks  of  fire 

*  This  has  been  proved  experimentally.  Perception,  like  every 
other  mental  process,  takes  time.  This  time,  which  has  been 
measured,  and  which  may  differ  in  different  persons,  or  in  the  same 
person  at  different  times,  is  less  if  the  nature  of  the  impression  to 
be  made  is  known  beforehand,  less  still  if  the  instant  of  its  appear- 
ance be  foreseen. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  299 

issuing  from  it,  presently  saw  fire  burst  forth  from  it,  which 
she  continued  to  see  when  the  magnet  had  been  secretly 
removed.  In  like  manner,  at  the  so-called  spiritual 
seances,  the  idea  of  an  event  being  about  to  happen  will 
produce  in  some  persons  a  conviction  that  they  actually 
see  or  feel  it  happen.  A  person  of  a  certain  sort  of  ner- 
vous temperament,  sitting  in  the  dark  for  some  time  in 
complete  silence,  having  the  feeling  of  some  mysterious 
agency  at  work,  and  eagerly  expectant,  gets  into  such  a 
state  of  mind  that  he  is  ready  to  perceive  what  he  is 
confidently  assured  will  occur,  and  perceives  it  accord- 
ingly, when  what  really  occurred  was  perhaps  something 
quite  different.  The  rule  of  sound  observation  is  that 
the  mind  should  be  free  from  a  preconceived  idea ;  the 
rule  of  those  who  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep  is  that 
the  mind  should  be  possessed  by  the  preconceived  idea. 
It  has  been  the  same  with  miracle-mongers  in  all  ages. 
The  man  who  sees  a  miracle,  like  him  who  sees  a  ghost, 
is  the  man  who  expects  to  see  one ;  wherefore  the  testi- 
mony as  to  miracles  when  religious  emotional  excitement 
prevails  is  of  no  value.  As  in  a  burning  substance  the 
heat  given  off  by  the  portion  that  is  combining  with  oxy- 
gen raises  the  adjacent  part  to  a  temperature  at  which  it 
also  will  combine  with  oxygen  and  burn,  so  a  high  tem- 
perature of  emotion  in  one  person  raises  the  temperature 
of  emotion  in  his  neighbour,  and  the  epidemic  of  excite- 
ment and  credulity  spreads  like  wild-fire.  It  has  always 
been  the  perverse  custom  of  miracles  to  happen  in  the 
presence  of  those  who  were  so  full  of  faith  that  they  did 
not  require  their  occurrence  in  order  to  testify  of  them, 
and  to  fail  to  happen  in  the  presence  of  those  who  were 
of  so  little  faith  as  to  doubt 

It  is  a  disputed  question  whether  the  idea  or  emotion, 
when  it  acts  upon  the  sensory  centres  so  as  to  produce 
a  hallucination,  transmits  the  current  of  nervous  action 
along  the  sensory  nerves  to  the  organs  of  sense.  Miiller 


300  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

believed  that  a  current  passed  in  this  way  from  the  centre 
to  the  periphery,  just  as  happens  when  the  ideational 
current  affects  nutrition  or  movement.  Certainly  it  has 
been  proved  by  the  experiment  of  uniting  the  distal  por- 
tion of  a  divided  sensory  nerve  with  the  proximal  portion 
of  a  divided  motor  nerve,  that  a  current  may  traverse  a 
sensory  nerve  in  a  dowmvard  or  efferent  direction.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  the  hallucination  would 
be  generated  if  the  sensory  ganglia  only  were  affected, 
and  that  the  mind  will  always  in  such  case  refer  the 
sensation  to  the  peripheral  end  of  the  nerves.  A  person 
may  have  a  visual  hallucination  when  the  retina  and  the 
optic  nerve  are  so  wasted  as  to  be  incapable  of  function, 
and  an  auditory  hallucination  when  the  auditory  nerve  is 
destroyed ;  and  one  who  has  had  his  leg  or  arm  ampu- 
tated feels  sensations,  as  if  he  still  possessed  the  lost 
limb,  for  some  time  after  its  removal.  The  transmission 
of  the  current  to  the  periphery,  whether  it  takes  place  or 
not,  is  clearly  not  essential.  Some  writers  are  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  of  the  sensation  as  not  real  but  de- 
lusive, when  it  is  of  subjective  origin.  But  the  sensation 
is  real,  however  it  originate :  the  man  who  believes  he 
sees  a  ghost  has  a  real  sensation  of  it,  although  he  does 
not  really  see  it,  there  being  no  object  outside  his  eye 
to  make  that  impression  upon  it  which  we  mean  by  see- 
ing. Like  the  dagger  which  Macbeth  saw,  it  is  before 
his  mind's  eye,  but  not  before  his  bodily  eye. 

(c)  A  third  important,  though  little  recognised,  way  in 
which  idea  may  operate,  is  upon  the  functions  of  nutri- 
tion and  secretion.  Whether  the  idea  act,  as  is  probable, 
directly  upon  the  organic  elements  of  the  part  through 
its  nerves,  or  indirectly  by  an  effect  upon  the  vaso-motor 
system,  or  in  both  ways,  it  is  certain  that  the  energy  of 
idea  may  increase  or  lessen  a  secretion,  and  may  modify 
nutrition.  The  idea  of  food  will  cause  a  flow  of  saliva  ; 
a  sympathetic  idea,  a  flow  of  tears  ;  the  idea  of  suckling, 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  301 

a  secretion  of  milk ;  the  idea  of  itching  in  a  particular 
spot  will  give  rise  to  an  itching  there ;  and  the  idea  that  a 
structural  defect  will  certainly  be  removed  by  a  particular 
manipulation  does  sometimes  so  affect  the  organic  action 
of  the  part  as  to  produce  a  cure.  The  most  successful 
physician  is  ever  one  who  inspires  his  patient  with  the 
greatest  confidence  in  the  virtue  of  his  remedies ;  and  he 
is  most  likely  to  be  attacked  by  epidemic  diseases  who 
most  fears  them.  Bacon  rightly,  therefore,  would  have 
us  inquire  into  the  best  means  to  "  fortify  and  exalt  the 
imagination."  "  And  here,"  he  says,  "  comes  in  crookedly 
and  dangerously  a  palliation  and  defence  of  a  great  part 
of  ceremonial  magic.  For  it  may  be  speciously  pretended 
that  ceremonies,  characters,  charms,  gesticulations,  amu- 
lets, and  the  like,  do  not  derive  their  power  from  any 
tacit  or  sacramental  contract  with  evil  spirits,  but  serve 
only  to  strengthen  and  exalt  the  imagination  of  him  who 
uses  them."  * 

It  is  well  known  that  a  bread  pill  will  sometimes  purge 
violently  one  who,  believing  that  he  has  taken  a  strong 
purgative,  confidently  expects  the  purgative  effect,  and 
a  perfectly  innocent  draught  may  produce  sleep,  when  it 
is  believed  to  contain  a  narcotic.  On  one  occasion  I  was 
consulted  about  an  old  lady  who  for  years  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  taking  two  purgative  pills,  two  or  three  times  a 
week  or  oftener,  and  a  dose  of  chloral  every  night.  Her 
husband,  who  thought  that  she  must  be  doing  injury  to 
her  health  by  this  practice,  substituted  bread  pills  for 
those  which  she  bought,  and  greatly  lessened  the  dose  of 
chloral,  without  saying  anything  to  her ;  the  usual  effect 
being  produced  in  both  cases.  But  it  was  always  neces- 
sary that  there  should  be  a  taste  of  chloral,  however  little 
the  quantity  of  the  drug,  for  the  effect  to  be  produced. 
The  idea  of  a  person  that  he  will  go  to  sleep,  certainly  pro- 
motes the  occurrence  of  sleep ;  the  idea  that  he  will  not, 
*  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum,  B.  iv. 


302  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

-* 

on  the  other  hand,  as  certainly  tends  to  keep  him  awake ; 
and  the  idea  that  he  must  awake  at  a  certain  hour  usually 
causes  him  to  awake  at  that  hour,  or  perhaps  more  often 
before  it.* 

The  so-called  stigmata  which  the  ecstatic  mystics  pro- 
fessed to  show  on  their  hands,  feet,  side,  or  forehead,  in 
imitation  of  the  sufferings  which  Christ  underwent  from 
the  nails,  spear  and  crown  of  thorns,  were  effects  of  the 
action  of  idea  upon  nutrition,  if  they  were  not  fraudu- 
lently produced.  But  it  is  impossible  for  those  who  are 
not  eager  to  seize  opportunities  of  practising  faith,  to 
avoid  the  suspicion  that  they  who  thus  professed  to  bear 
in  their  bodies  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus  bore  ulcer- 
ations  artificially  produced,  for  the  marks  most  often 
occurred  in  women  of  highly  nervous  temperament, 
whom  experience  proves  to  be  not  unapt  to  simulate 
strange  bodily  affections.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
examination  in  such  cases,  when  they  occur  now,  is  seldom 
made  with  such  strictness  as  to  exclude  fraud  :  if  the 
hands  are  the  seat  of  bleeding,  it  is  evidently  not  enough 
to  put  them  in  strong  gloves  and  to  take  every  precau- 
tion that  these  cannot  be  taken  off,  if  they  are  penetrable 
by  a  needle.  In  a  case  of  alleged  spontaneous  bleed- 
ing from  a  part  of  the  surface  of  the  body  which 
occurred  at  one  of  the  London  Hospitals,  the  imposture 
was  detected  by  placing  secretly  in  the  covering  which 
was  fastened  over  the  bleeding  surface  a  piece  of  tin- 
foil, which  was  found  on  examination  afterwards  to 
have  many  perforations  by  a  pin  or  needle.  It  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  when  attributing  such  events  to 

*  This  is  a  curious  fact,  as  it  would  appear  to  indicate  that  there 
is  an  appreciation  of  the  lapse  of  time  during  sleep.  We  observe 
something  of  the  same  kind  in  the  day,  for  a  man  who  has  not  heard 
7  clock  strike,  or  looked  at  a  watch,  has  a  tolerably  accurate  notion 
what  the  hour  is,  especially  if  lie  has  been  going  on  in  his  usual 
routine. 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLtA.  303 

fraud,  that  it  may  not  be  deliberate  deception  in  all 
cases.  Deception  is  not  a  definite,  constant  mental  state, 
which  either  is  or  is  not,  and  which  therefore  when  it  is 
not,  may  be  eliminated  entirely  from  consideration. 
There  are  various  degrees  of  deception  ranging  from  the 
most  wilful  deception  to  the  most  innocent  unconscious 
self-deception ;  and  assuredly  the  greatest  impostor  is  he 
who  imposes  upon  himself  as  well  as  upon  others.  We 
ought  in  this  relation  to  take  account  of  those  peculiar 
states  of  abnormal  consciousness  which  occur  in  dream- 
ing, hypnotism,  epilepsy,  catalepsy,  even  ecstacy,  and  the 
like  morbid  states,  when  it  will  appear  not  impossible 
that  a  person  might,  in  a  so-called  ecstatic  trance  or 
vision,  fabricate  a  stigma,  and  yet  be  unaware,  when  he 
returned  to  normal  consciousness,  of  what  he  had  done 
when  he  was,  as  it  were,  alienated  from  his  proper  self. 
For  it  is  certain  that  those  who  fall  into  these  anomalous 
states  may,  when  they  come  to  themselves,  be  quite 
ignorant  of  what  they  did  while  in  the  state  of  abnormal 
consciousness.  I  doubt  not  that  some  of  those  who 
suffered  from  what  I  take  leave  to  call  theolepsy  were  of 
this  class. 

(</)  There  is  yet  another  path  which  the  energy  of  an 
idea  may  take.  As.  in  the  function  of  the  spinal  cord, 
the  current  of  nervous  action  which  did  not  pass  directly 
outwards  in  the  reaction  travelled  upwards  to  the  sen- 
sorium  commune  and  excited  sensation  ;  and  as  in  sen- 
sori-motor  action  the  current  of  nervous  force  which 
did  not  pass  outwards  in  the  reaction  travelled  up 
to  the  cortical  cells,  and  gave  rise  to  idea ;  so  in  idea- 
tional  action  the  current  which  does  not  pass,  or  which 
may  be  over  and  above  what  does  pass,  immediately  out- 
wards in  the  reaction,  abides  in  operation  in  the  cortical 
centres,  and  passes  therein  from  plexus  to  plexus  of  the 
complicated  mechanism.  There  is  no  superimposed 
collection  of  nerve  centres  of  a  higher  kind  to  which  it 


304  THE  niYSIOLGGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

might  now  ascend,  and  wherein  it  might  excite  a  higher 
kind  of  mental  activity ;  there  is,  instead,  an  infinite  mul- 
titude of  nerve-cells  in  the  cortical  layers,  having  most 
numerous,  varied,  and  intricate  connections,  whereby  ex- 
citation may  be  communicated  from  one  to  another.  This 
communication  is  what  does  take  place  when  one  idea 
calls  up  another  by  some  association,  itself  partly  or 
wholly  disappearing  in  the  act.  It  is  probable  that  one 
idea  can  only  call  another  into  activity  through  its  own 
partial  or  entire  disappearance  from  consciousness,  as  one 
wave  disappears  in  the  production  of  another ;  but  it  is, 
perhaps,  doubtful  whether  this,  which  is  Miiller's  simile, 
expresses  the  condition  of  things  so  well  as  that  of 
Hobbes,  who  looked  upon  one  idea  as  obscured  by  the 
more  active  one,  "  in  such  manner  as  the  light  of  the  sun 
obscureth  the  light  of  the  stars ;  which  stars  do  no  less 
exercise  their  virtue,  by  which  they  are  visible,  in  the  day 
than  in  the  night."  *  (?)  There  is  as  would  appear,  not 

*  Dr.  Brown  (Physiology  of  the  Mind,  p.  223)  held,  however, 
that  the  slightest  attention  to  the  successive  states  of  mind  would 
show,  "  that  a  conception,  after  giving  rise  to  some  new  conception, 
does  not  always  cease  to  be  itself  a  part  of  our  continued  conscious- 
ness." He  thougljt  that  it  often  remained  so  as  to  co-exist  with  the 
conception  which  itself  had  induced,  and  might  afterwards  suggest 
other  conceptions,  or  other  feelings,  with  which  it  might  then  co- 
exist in  a  still  more  complex  group.  "  We  compare,  we  choose, 
in  our  internal  plans,  because  different  objects  are  together  present 
to  our  conceptions."  Sir  W.  Hamilton  limited  to  six  the  number  of 
objects  which  might  exist  in  consciousness  at  the  same  time  ;  and 
Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  in  las  Examination  of  Sir  IV,  Hamilton 's  Philosophy, 
allows  a  '* great  multitude  of  states,  more  or  less  conscious,  -which  ojten 
co-exist  in  the  mind!"  On  this  question  Sir  H.  Holland  has  some 
excellent  remarks  in  his  "  Chapters  on  Mental  Physiology."  German 
philosophers  differ  also  with  regard  to  the  answer,  some  upholding, 
with  Miiller,  a  single  conscious  state,  others  a  co-existence  of  con- 
scious states.  It  would  appear  that  ideas  are  in  this  regard  like 
movements  :  several  of  them  may  be  in  simultaneous  action,  though 
not  simultaneously  present  to  consciousness.  For  my  part,  it  seems 
to  me  clear  that  I  can  see  more  than  one  object  at  a  time,  but  that 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  305 

only  a  transference  of  energy  from  cell  to  cell  within  the 
hemispherical  ganglia  but  a  transformation  thereof  in  the 
process;  and  the  energy  of  the  particular  current,  or  the 
idea  for  the  moment  active,  is  attended  with  conscious- 
ness. We  are  now  come,  then,  to  another  sphere  of 
mental  function,  namely,  function  within  consciousness, 
or  mental  reflection. 

It  behoves  us  here  to  settle  clearly  in  our  minds  the 
relation  of  consciousness  to  ideational  function,  or  at  any 
rate  to  be  on  our  guard  against  considering  consciousness 
as  co-extensive  with  such  function.  When  the  whole 
energy  of  an  idea  passes  immediately  outwards  in  ideo- 
motor  action,  then  there  is  scarce  any,  or  there  may  be 
no,  consciousness  of  it ;  in  order  that  there  may  be  con- 
sciousness of  the  idea,  it  is  necessary  not  only  that  its 
excitation  reach  a  certain  intensity,  but  that  the  whole 
force  of  it  do  not  pass  immediately  outwards  in  the  re- 
action. When  an  idea  disappears  from  consciousness,  it 
does  not  necessarily  disappear  entirely  ;  it  may  remain  in 
latent  action  below  the  horizon  of  consciousness,  the 
currents  of  molecular  motion  subsiding  gradually  before 
it  ceases  entirely.  Moreover,  it  may  produce  an  effect 
upon  movement  or  upon  other  ideas  when  thus  active 
below  the  horizon  of  consciousness ;  for  when  we  find 
the  same  effect  produced  unconsciously  which  we  know 
it  to  have  produced  when  we  were  conscious,  we 
justly  infer  the  activity  of  the  same  cause;  the  more 
confidently  so  because  we  may  sometimes,  when  our 
consciousness  is  unexpectedly  aroused  to  its  operation, 
or  withdrawn  from  something  else  which  was  occupying 

when  I  endeavour  to  think  of  two  things  at  the  same  time,  my  con- 
sciousness passes  rapidly  from  one  to  the  other.  'When  I  do  appear 
to  be  conscious  of  two  or  nure  ideas  at  the  same  time,  it  is  that  the 
ideas  have  coalesced  into  one  complex  idea,  or  so  nearly  so  that 
while  I  have  active  consciousness  of  the  one,  I  am  capable,  at  the 
same  time,  of  a  subactive  consciousness  of  the  other. 


306  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MLVD.  [CHAP. 

its  field,  catch  it  in  the  act.  The  persistence  for  a  time 
of  a  certain  degree  of  intensity  of  energy  in  the  idea- 
tional  circuit  would  certainly  appear  to  be  the  condition 
of  consciousness.  Accordingly  when  the  process  of  re- 
flection is  going  on  quietly  and  rapidly,  through  the  regular 
association  of  ideas,  there  is  no  consciousness  of  the 
steps ;  in  the  train  of  thought  one  idea  calls  another  into 
activity  without  being  itself  attended  to,  so  that  the  result 
may  appear  sudden  and  accidental,  and  it  may  be  very 
difficult,  or  quite  impossible,  to  retrace  the  steps  or  take 
up  the  successive  links  by  which  it  was  evolved.  In  the 
course  of  a  day  how  many  thoughts  or  ideas  do  thus 
suddenly  start  into  consciousness,  or,  as  we  may  say, 
suddenly  strike  us !  The  excitation  of  one  ideational 
current  would  seem  to  be  communicated  immediately  to 
another,  and  the  energy  thus  to  run  through  a  series  by  a 
continuous  transformation,  with  no  persistence  at  any  of 
the  intermediate  stages. 

A  conception  of  the  way  in  which  a  group  or  series  of 
movements  is  observably  associated,  and  the  faculty  of 
them  is  firmly  organized  in  the  nervous  centres,  so  that 
they  are  thenceforth  automatically  performed,  will  be 
found  most  serviceable  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
phenomena  of  ideational  activity.  In  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other,  there  must  be  an  organization  in  relation  to  the 
environment  by  means  of  education,  a  young  child's 
ideas  and  movements  being  alike  vague,  vivid,  transient, 
and  incoherent.  Like  muscular  motions,  ideas  are  asso- 
ciated in  groups  or  series,  getting  closer  and  closer 
together  by  repetitions,  until  they  so  coalesce  as,  like 
sensations  which  appear  simple  to  consciousness  but  are 
really  compound,  to  leave  no  trace  of  their  separate  ex- 
istence in  consciousness  ;  like  movements,  they  become 
easier  with  repetition ;  like  them,  they  are  excited  into 
action  by  appropriate  stimuli ;  like  them,  when  once  asso- 
ciated, they  are  not  easily  separated,  and  may  become 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  307 

indissoluble ;  like  them,  they  may  be  accomplished  with- 
out consciousness;  like  them,  they  demand  an  appre- 
ciable time  for  their  accomplishment ;  and,  like  them, 
they  are  fatigued  by  prolonged  exercise.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  time  necessary  for  the  performance  of  an 
idea  is  really  a  most  important  one,  which  has  not 
hitherto  received  sufficient  attention.  The  time  is  ap- 
preciable, and  is  sometimes  not  less  than  that  required 
for  the  performance  of  a  muscular  motion  ;  for,  as  Dr. 
Darwin  observed,  a  musician  can  press  the  keys  of  a 
harpsichord  with  his  fingers  in  the  order  of  a  tune  which 
he  has  been  accustomed  to  play,  in  as  little  a  time  as  he 
can  run  over  those  notes  in  his  mind.  Nay,  an  idea  may 
even  require  more  time  than  a  movement :  how  many 
times  in  a  day  do  we  cover  our  eyes  with  our  eyelids 
without  ever  perceiving  that  we  are  in  the  dark  ?  In  this 
case,  as  Dr.  Darwin  has  also  observed,  the  muscular 
motion  of  the  eyelid  is  performed  quicker  than  the  idea 
of  light  can  be  changed  for  that  of  darkness,  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye  being  quicker  than  thought.  (7) 

The  interference  of  consciousness  is  often  an  actual 
hindrance  to  the  association  of  ideas,  as  it  notably  is  to 
the  performance  of  movements  that  have  attained  the 
complete  ease  of  an  automatic  execution.  It  happens 
that  we  try  hard  to  recall  something  to  mind,  and  are 
unable  by  the  utmost  effort  of  volition  and  the  strongest 
direction  of  consciousness  to  do  so  :  we  thereupon  re- 
linquish the  attempt,  and  direct  our  attention  to  some- 
thing else  :  and,  after  a  while,  the  result  for  which  we 
in  vain  strove  flashes  into  consciousness  :  the  automatic 
action  of  the  brain  has  worked  it  out  That  is  exactly 
what  we  might  expect  to  happen  ;  for  if  consciousness 
implies  a  persistence  of  the  tension  of  a  nerve-cell's 
energy,  then  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  persistent 
tension  must  be  the  retardation  of,  or  hindrance  to,  the 
process  01  association  of  ideas  which  is  effected  by  a 


308  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

transference  of  energy  from  one  to  another  of  the 
catenated  cells.  For  the  same  reason  strong  emotion  is 
unfavourable  to  reflection  :  certain  cells  or  cell- territories 
continue  in  a  state  of  molecular  commotion,  and  only 
excite  by  association  sympathetic  ideas,  that  is,  ideas  re- 
lated to  the  strong  feeling  which  is  the  exponent  of  their 
activity  ;  the  free  course  of  a  varied  association  being 
prevented.  Anger  is  a  short  madness,  because,  like  the 
fixed  delusion  of  monomania,  it  marks  the  prepon- 
derating activity  of  a  certain  area  of  cells,  and  the  exclu- 
sion of  full  and  unimpeded  transmission  or  reflection  of 
energy.  How  can  there  be  true  deliberation  when  one 
end  of  the  balance  is  falsely  weighted  ? 

An  active  consciousness  is  always  detrimental  to 
the  best  and  most  successful  thought ;  the  thinker  who 
is  actively  attentive  to  the  succession  of  his  ideas  is 
thinking  to  little  purpose ;  what  the  successful  thinker 
observes  is  that  he  is  conscious  of  the  words  which 
he  is  uttering  or  writing,  while  the  thought,  uncoa- 
sciously  elaborated  by  the  functional  action  of  Ine 
brain,  flows  from  unpenetrated  depths  into  consciojs- 
ness.  In  reverie  the  train  of  meditation  goes  on  \uth 
little  or  no  consciousness  of  its  successive  links,  and 
may  go  on  until  attention  is  aroused  by  some  start- 
ling thought  which  the  person  cannot  at  first  imagine 
how  he  came  to  have.  It  is  only  when  he  can  deliber- 
ately trace  backwards  the  succession  of  ideas  that  .'ie 
discovers  how  he  conceived  it  Reflection  is  then,  in 
reality,  the  reflex  action  of  the  cells  in  their  relations  to 
the  cerebral  ganglia ;  it  is  the  reaction  of  one  cell  to  a 
stimulus  from  a  neighbouring  cell,  and  the  sequent  trans- 
ference of  its  energy  to  another  cell — the  reflection  ol  it. 
Attention  is  the  arrest  of  the  transformation  of  energy 
for  a  moment — the  maintenance  of  a  particular  tension. 
When  the  tension  is  maintained  at  a  certain  elevation, 
without  being  excessive,  there  is  a  state  favourable 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  309 

to  a  radiation  of  energy  in  all  directions,  so  that  all  the 
related  ideas  are  aroused ;  and  it  is  a  condition  of  the 
best  mental  development  to  establish  and  keep  open  a 
great  many  channels  of  radiation,  by  means  of  a  varied 
cultivation  and  exercise  of  mind.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  alcohol  and  opium  sometimes  aid  imagination  by 
stimulating  torpid  molecules,  and  by  so  opening  up  unused 
or  obstructed  paths  of  association.  Bear  in  mind  what  was 
said  of  the  varying  value  of  an  idea  and  of  the  manner 
of  its  gradual  organization  in  the  nervous  centres,  and 
the  applicability  of  the  term  deliberation  to  a  process  of 
thought,  as  a  weighing  or  balancing  of  one  reason  against 
another,  will  be  evident.  Or  if  we  prefer  the  term  ratio- 
cination^ we  may  say,  with  Hobbes,  that  by  it  is  meant 
compulation.  "  Now  to  compute  is  either  to  collect  the 
sum  of  many  things  that  are  added  together,  or  to  know 
what  remains  when  one  thing  is  taken  from  another. 
Ratiocination,  therefore,  is  the  same  with  addition  and 
subtraction"  Subtract  the  energy  of  an  opposing  desire 
from  a  more  powerful  one,  and  the  energy  left  represents 
the  resultant  force  of  impulse  after  deliberation  ;  add  the 
energy  of  a  like  desire  to  another,  and  the  sum  repre- 
sents the  force  of  the  resolution.  After  severe  reflection 
or  deliberation  the  decision  or  resolution  may  be  held 
to  signify  that  the  individual  has  resolved,  to  the  best  of 
his  ability,  the  complex  equation  set  him ;  that  he  has 
guided  the  fundamental  desire  through  the  complex 
processes  of  deliberation,  adding  here  and  subtracting 
there,  until  it  has  come  out  in  the  best  volition  of  which, 
with  his  mental  plexuses  such  as  they  are  by  constitution 
and  education,  he  is  capable. 

Though  reflection  is  a  process  of  mental  activity 
which  takes  place  within  consciousness,  yet  conscious- 
ness itself,  when  fairly  examined,  will  show  how  limited 
is  the  power  of  mind  over  the  train  of  its  ideas.  The 
foundation  of  an  idea  is  an  organic  process  that  takes 


3io  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

place  by  imperceptible  degrees  beyond  the  range  of  con- 
sciousness ;  the  idea,  when  formed,  may  be  said  to  exist 
in  a  latent,  dormant  or  statical  state ;  and  it  may  even 
be  made  active,  and  its  energy  duly  expended,  without 
consciousness.  In  like  manner  the  catenation  of  a  group 
or  series  of  ideas  is  an  organic  process  of  which  con- 
sciousness has  no  knowledge,  and  over  which  volition  has 
no  control ;  once  the  train  is  firmly  linked  together  by 
this  organized  coherence,  the  excitation  of  one  must 
needs  bring  on  the  excitation  of  the  others,  one  after 
another,  as  it  traverses  its  appointed  orbit,  rising  above 
the  mental  horizon  into  consciousness,  and  in  due  order 
again  sinking  below  it.  The  power  of  the  mind  over  the 
succession  of  its  states  is  plainly  at  best  but  a  limited 
faculty ;  herein  corresponding  with  that  limited  control 
which  the  individual  has  over  the  phenomena  of  his 
bodily  life,  where  conscious  and  unconscious,  voluntary 
and  involuntary,  acts  are  so  intimately  intermixed.  To 
make  states  of  consciousness  synonymous  with  states  of 
mind,  as  some  have  heedlessly  done,  is  scarcely  less  un- 
warrantable than  it  would  be  to  assert  all  bodily  acts  to 
be  conscious  acts. 

It  is  not  part  of  my  design  to  attempt  to  give  a  full 
exposition  of  the  different  mental  processes  and  to  go 
into  a  complete  analysis  of  their  nature,  and  I  pass 
quickly  therefore  over  many  subjects  concerning  which 
it  would  be  interesting  to  speculate.  One  of  these  is  the 
nature  and  influence  of  attention.  Whatever  its  nature, 
it  is  plainly  the  essential  condition  of  the  formation  and 
development  of  mind.  Children  learn  well  or  ill,  as 
monkeys  do,  according  to  the  capacity  of  attention  which 
they  display,  and  in  after  life  fruitful  reflection  upon  a 
subject  is  possible  only  where  there  is  the  power  of  con- 
centrating the  attention.*  It  is  plain  that  those  who 

*  "  A  man  who  trains  monkeys  to  act  used  to  purchase  common 
kinds  from  the  Zoological  Society,  at  the  price  of  five  pounds  for 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  311 

attend  carelessly  to  an  object  or  event  with  which  they 
are  concerned  will  receive  only  feeble  and  inadequate 
impressions  from  it,  and  that  the  effects  will  be  imper- 
fectly registered  in  the  appropriate  nervous  centres ; 
wherefore  it  is  improbable  they  should  rightly  under- 
stand it,  and  impossible,  if  they  collect  other  materials 
of  thought  in  the  same  heedless  way,  that  they  should 
exhibit  exact  reasoning  and  exercise  sound  judgment. 
Many  persons  assuredly  give  only  a  glancing  attention  to 
other  subjects  than  those  which  they  have  been  drilled 
to  attend  to  by  the  education  which  they  have  received 
and  by  the  special  pursuits  and  habits  of  their  lives ;  and 
if  we  reflect  upon  the  formation  and  action  of  the  mechan- 
ism of  thought — how  it  is  developed  in  adjustment  to  im- 
pressions in  order  to  react  in  definite  ways,  we  shall 
easily  perceive  how  it  is  that  they  become  automatic 
machines  for  giving  out  unsound  conclusions  when  they 
pass  judgment  upon  matters  that  lie  at  all  outside  their 
accustomed  grooves  of  mental  function.  They  are  faith- 
fully stamped,  like  bank-notes,  with  the  same  marks,  and 
their  thoughts  and  feelings  will  alone  pass  current 
among  those  of  their  sect,  party  or  country  who  are 

each  ;  but  he  offered  to  give  double  the  price  if  he  might  keep  three 
or  four  of  them  for  a  few  days,  in  order  to  select  one.  When  asked 
how  he  could  possibly  so  soon  learn  whether  a  particular  monkey 
would  turn  out  a  good  actor,  he  answered  that  it  all  depended  on 
their  power  of  attention.  If  when  he  was  talking  or  explaining 
anything  to  a  monkey,  its  attention  was  easily  distracted,  as  by  a 
fly  on  the  wall  or  other  trifling  object,  the  case  was  hopeless. 
If  he  tried  by  punishment  to  make  an  inattentive  monkey  act,  it 
turned  sulky.  On  the  other  hand,  a  monkey  which  carefully 
attended  to  him  could  always  be  trained." — DARWIN'S  Descent  of 
Man,  volL,  p.  45.  Very  notable  in  imbecile  or  idiotic  children  is 
the  lack  of  power  of  attention  ;  when  a  new  object  is  presented  to 
them  they  throw  it  aside  or  turn  away  from  it  directly,  without  get- 
ting from  it  the  informing  impressions  which  it  should  produce ; 
their  defective  nervous  structure  is  deficient  in  or  destitute  of  its 
fundamental  property  of  adaptation  to  the  environing  medium. 


312  7 IIE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAI-. 

similarly  stamped.  The  revelations  of  modern  science 
are  foolishness  to  those  who  have  been  trained  to  ac- 
cept supernatural  revelations,  and  who  have  remained 
content  with  that  training,  and  when  the  springs  of  their 
thought  are  touched  they  will  give  out  the  same  predict- 
able results  with  mechanical  uniformity.  It  is  the  same 
with  all  men  who  have  undergone  a  one-sided  develop- 
ment :  when  subjected  to  impressions  to  which  their  minds 
have  not  been  adjusted,  these  produce  no  intelligent  effect 
— are  as  sound  to  the  deaf,  as  light  to  the  blind.  One 
need  not  converse  long  with  ordinary  persons,  if  their 
education,  position  and  pursuits  be  known,  without 
feeling  pretty  confident  what  opinions  they  will  express 
on  any  social,  political,  or  religious  subject  which  may  be 
broached  in  their  presence.  To  travel  daily  to  a  large 
city  by  rail,  and  to  listen  to  the  usual  conversation  of  the 
commercial  men  who  are  on  their  way  to  business,  be- 
comes as  wearisome  as  to  watch  the  operations  of  a 
thrashing  machine,  for  the  results  are  almost  as  automatic 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

It  is  an  obvious  distinction  to  make  between  involun- 
tary and  voluntary  attention  ;  the  interest  of  the  object 
or  subject  forcibly  soliciting  it  in  the  former  case,  while 
it  is  said  to  be  directed  by  an  effort  of  will  in  the  latter 
case.  When  a  present  object  or  event  of  interest  engages 
the  attention  earnestly,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the 
nervous  centres  which  minister  to  the  perception  may  be 
in  active  operation  and  that  an  intense  consciousness 
may  be  thereby  produced.  When  the  object  or  event  is 
no  longer  present  to  sense,  but  the  idea  of  it  engages  the 
attention,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  same  ner- 
vous centres  are  in  operation  and  in  the  same  way ;  not, 
however,  with  the  same  intensity  usually,  whence  it 
happens  that  the  attention  is  more  apt  to  wander,  in 
other  words,  the  energy  is  more  apt  to  radiate  along 
other  plexuses.  The  idea  may  be  of  such  a  nature  as  to 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  313 

hold  the  attention  fast  without  any  auxiliary  effort  of  will, 
or  even  in  spite  of  efforts  of  will  to  withdraw  attention 
from  it.  Now  two  observations  in  regard  to  attention 
have  been  made  which  are  of  some  interest :  the  first  is 
that  it  has  the  physical  effect  of  increasing  the  sensibility 
of  the  nerve  to  weak  impressions,  persons  obviously 
hearing,  feeling,  smelling  more  acutely  when  their  atten- 
tion is  on  the  strain ;  and  the  second,  which  is  perhaps  a 
consequence  of  the  first,  is  that  the  appreciable  time 
which  elapses  between  the  action  of  a  stimulus  upon  a 
sense  and  its  perception  is  distinctly  shorter  when  the 
impression  is  attentively  expected  than  when  it  is  unex- 
pected. This  is  in  accordance  with  the  previous  inference 
that  an  active  idea  is  accompanied  by  a  molecular  change 
in  the  nervous  elements,  which  is  propagated  either  along 
the  sensory  nerve  to  its  periphery,  or,  if  not  so  far,  at 
any  rate  to  the  sensory  ganglion,  the  sensibility  of  which 
is  thereby  increased.  The  result  of  this  propagation  of 
molecular  action  to  the  ganglion  is  that  the  different 
muscles  in  connection  with  the  affected  sense  are  put 
into  a  certain  tension  by  reflex  action,  and  thereby  in- 
crease the  feeling  of  attention,  in  accordance  with  the 
law  that  associated  feelings  strengthen  one  another.  Let 
it  be  noted,  moreover,  that  the  increase  of  sensibility  by 
attention  is  in  entire  harmony  with  what  I  have  previously 
said  concerning  the  habitual  operation  of  ideas  upon 
the  sensory  centres,  and  their  occasional  operation  in 
producing  illusions  and  hallucinations. 

When  we  give  intense  attention  to  a  perception,  or  to 
the  performance  of  an  act  or  of  an  idea,  we  are  distinctly 
conscious  of  a  feeling  of  tension  ;  a  feeling  which,  when 
we  search  back  through  our  experiences,  we  find  to  re- 
semble the  feelings  of  muscular  tension  more  closely  than 
anything  else,  and  refer  accordingly  to  the  category  of 
motor  innervation.  When  we  look  intently  at  an  object, 
our  ocular  muscles  are  put  into  a  state  of  tension ; 


314  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

when  we  listen  intently,  our  auditory  muscles;  when 
we  sniff  intently  a  scarce  perceptible  odour,  our  nasai 
muscles ;  when  we  touch  intently  some  object,  so  as  to 
have  a  very  nice  feeling  of  it,  the  muscles  of  the  part 
which  we  are  using  :  the  result  of  the  co-operating  stimuli 
of  the  muscular  sense  in  all  these  instances  being  to  in- 
crease the  activity  of  the  original  sensation.  In  fact,  as 
the  perception  of  the  object  consists  of  the  affection  of 
sense  plus  the  correspondent  muscular  feelings,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  a  greater  excitation  of  the  latter  will  compen- 
sate for  a  feebler  impression  upon  the  former  in  bringing 
the  object  clearly  into  the  field  of  consciousness.  It  is 
well  known  that  impressions  escape  consciousness  from 
inattention ;  and  it  is  well  known  also  that  a  person  may 
sometimes,  by  deliberately  practising  attention,  perceive 
impressions  of  which  he  would  otherwise  have  been  un- 
conscious, just  as  he  can  by  attention  and  practice  gain 
a  voluntary  power  over  muscles  which  are  commonly 
beyond  the  control  of  will.  For  example,  as  he  may 
succeed  in  voluntarily  moving  the  muscles  of  the  ear  and 
even  of  the  iris,  so  he  may  succeed  in  distinguishing 
some  of  the  tones  which  unite  to  constitute  the  quality 
of  a  musical  note  which  appears  to  be  simple.  In  this 
case  there  is  obviously  a  tension  of  the  auditory  muscles, 
the  extremely  delicate  variations  of  which,  answering  to 
the  differences  of  vibrations  of  sounds,  reveal  themselves 
in  consciousness  as  discriminating  perception :  the  pro- 
cess corresponding  exactly  with  that  which  takes  place  in 
the  ocular  muscles  when  a  person  learns  to  measure  with 
his  eye  nice  differences  of  distance. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  How  can  motor  innervation 
be  a  factor  in  the  operation  of  will  in  a  mental  act 
when,  so  far  as  appears,  no  muscular  act  is  concerned  ? 
The  reply  which  there  seems  good  warrant  to  make 
is  that  motor  innervation  invariably  accompanies  the 
simplest  effort  of  what  seems  to  be  pure  will.  When 


v.J  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  315 

we  think  of  an  object  which  is  not  present  to  sense 
we  exercise  the  same  motor  innervation  which  we  do 
when  we  actually  perceive  it  and  think  about  it,  the 
only  difference  being  that  we  do  it,  as  it  were,  in  an 
internal  whisper,  or  are  content  with  a  nascent  excitation 
— in  other  words,  we  have  the  same  motor  intuitions  :  in 
like  manner,  when  we  exercise  will  in  thinking,  there  is 
always  a  tension,  actual  or  nascent,  of  some  muscles — 
either  of  the  ocular  muscles,  when  our  eyes  look  as  if 
they  were  straining  to  see  or  apprehend  some  distant 
object;  or  of  the  auditory  muscles,  when  we  have  the 
appearance  of  one  who  is  listening  to  catch  a  distant 
sound;  or  of  the  muscles  of  head,  nose,  forehead  and 
face,  when  the  looker-on  can  easily  read  earnest  thought 
in  the  resulting  expression ;  or  in  some  other  of  the 
muscles  of  the  body  which  persons  may  have  associated 
with  their  thinking  processes. 

In  support  of  this  opinion  let  me  instance — first,  the 
feeling  of  tension  in  or  about  the  head  which  is  some- 
times experienced  after  long  and  earnest  thought,  and 
which,  if  augmented,  may  not  only  become  distress- 
ing but  may  end  in  giddiness  or  vertigo,  the  motor 
innervation  losing  its  definite  co-ordinate  character, 
and  discharging  its  disorderly  energy  in  consciousness  ; 
secondly,  the  frequent  association  of  apparently  useless 
movements  with  the  movements  which  are  necessary  for 
the  accomplishment  of  an  act,  as,  for  example,  when  one 
who  is  making  a  strong  exertion  with  his  arms  or  a  deli- 
cate operation  with  his  hands  distorts  or  otherwise  puts 
in  action  the  muscles  of  his  face.  Such  movements  have 
been  called  sympathetic,  as  they  indeed  are,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  may  be  justly  argued  that  they  actually 
assist  in  the  performance  of  the  operation,  forasmuch  as 
they  strengthen  the  central  energy  by  means  of  the  sen- 
sory reflex  contributions  which  they  supply  through  their 
muscular  sense.  Lastly,  I  may  adduce  the  fact  that  the 


316  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

character  of  a  man's  will  is  written  in  the  character  of 
his  physiognomy  and  of  the  muscular  habit  of  his  body, 
as  evidence  that  there  has  been  an  habitual  muscular 
tension  during  each  operation  of  will.  Just  as  the  history 
of  a  man's  life  is  the  revelation  of  his  character,  testifying 
to  what  he  has  willed,  so  likewise  the  features  of  his  body, 
containing  the  history  of  what  he  had  willed,  would  be 
found  to  be  an  excellent  record  of  character,  could  we 
but  acquire  the  skill  to  interpret  the  symbols  accurately. 

If  one  were  required  to  specify  the  physical  conditions 
of  an  act  of  attention,  it  would  be  necessary  to  begin  by 
the  fundamental  postulate  of  an  interest  in  the  subject, 
arising  either  from  ancestral  affinities  in  the  individual's 
nature,  or  from  affinities  developed  in  it  in  consequence 
of  education  or  of  the  particular  pursuit  in  life.  After 
this  had  been  assumed,  the  requisite  conditions  might  be 
declared  to  be  these  :  first,  the  excitation  of  the  proper 
ideational  track  either  by  external  presentation  or  internal 
representation  ;  secondly,  the  intensification  of  its  energy 
by  the  increment  of  stimulus  resulting  from  the  proper 
motor  innervation ;  thirdly,  a  further  intensification  of 
energy  by  the  subsequent  reaction  of  the  more  active 
perceptive  centre  upon  the  motor  factor — the  interplay 
of  sensory  and  motor  factors  augmenting  the  activity  up 
to  a  certain  limit ;  and,  lastly,  a  probable  increase  in  the 
vascularity  of  the  parts  concerned,  in  consequence  of  the 
greater  activity  of  function.  Of  this  last  condition  I  have 
not  yet  said  anything ;  but  it  is  probable  from  these  cir- 
cumstances— that  there  is  a  more  active  circulation  of 
blood  through  the  brain  during  function  than  when  it  is  in 
repose,  and  that  the  effect  of  fixing  the  attention  upon  a 
part  of  the  body  is  notably  sometimes  to  increase  the 
activity  of  its  circulation.  We  may  fairly  conclude,  then, 
that  the  effect  of  attention  to  a  current  of  thought  is 
to  quicken  the  circulation  in  the  nervous  subtrata  which 
minister  to  it ;  not  otherwise  than  as  when  some  earnest 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  317 

thought  has  taken  hold  of  the  mind,  it  keeps  up  an  active 
circulation  in  the  brain,  and  will  not  let  us  go  to  sleep. 
It  determines  an  afflux  of  blood,  and  the  increased  afflux 
of  blood  sustains  the  activity;  and  when  sleep  is  pro- 
cured, it  may  be  done  either  by  an  abatement  of  thought 
and  a  sequent  lowering  of  the  circulation,  or  by  a 
lowering  of  the  circulation  and  a  sequent  subsidence 
of  thought  Compare  in  regard  to  this  action  and 
reaction  the  phenomena  of  blushing :  an  idea  which 
is  connected  with  some  feeling  of  shame  causes  an  im- 
mediate dilatation  of  the  vessels  of  the  face  and  neck, 
and  the  individual  blushes;  thereupon  the  feeling  pro- 
duced by  the  blushing  reacts  upon  the  idea,  and  augments 
his  shame  and  confusion ;  and  the  consequence  is  that  he 
blushes  still  deeper,  and  is  still  more  confused. 

Bearing  the  foregoing  considerations  in  mind,  let  us 
endeavour  to  apprehend  clearly  what  is  meant  by  saying 
that  we  voluntarily  direct  attention  to  a  subject  of  thought 
in  order  to  reflect  upon  it  What  is  accomplished  in  such 
case  is  the  excitation  of  certain  nervous  currents  of  ideas, 
and  their  maintenance  in  action  until  they  have  called 
into  consciousness,  by  radiation  of  energy,  all  their 
related  ideas,  or  as  many  of  them  as  it  may  be  possible, 
in  the  then  condition  of  the  brain,  to  stimulate  into 
action.  If  the  reflection  be  fruitful,  a  new  conception  is 
formed,  co-ordinating  or  holding  together  the  newly  dis- 
covered relations,  which  takes  its  place  henceforth  in  due 
association  with,  but  on  a  higher  level  of  abstraction  than, 
the  ideas  from  which  it  has  been  developed.  The 
voluntary  direction  of  attention  to  a  subject  of  thought 
implies  an  interest  in  it  arising  from  some  feeling  con- 
nected with  it,  or  from  the  desire  to  understand  it, 
whereby  it  holds  the  attention ;  for  if  the  subject  be 
utterly  without  interest  to  us,  or  if  thinking  about  it  fails 
entirely  to  stimulate  interest  by  the  discovery  of  any  new 
relations,  the  altenUon  is  sure  to  wander.  In  fact,  what 
15 


318  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

we  do  voluntarily  is  to  impart  an  interest  to  the  subject 
by  bringing  suitable  motives  to  bear,  augmenting  excita- 
tion by  appropriate  stimuli,  so  that  the  attention  is 
attracted,  or,  in  other  words,  consciousness  actively 
aroused,  rather  than,  as  common  language  implies,  to 
direct  consciousness  to  it,  and  so  to  keep  it  before  the 
mind.  It  would  appear  then  that  the  force  which  we 
mean  by  attention  is  rather  a  vis  a  fronte  attracting  con- 
sciousness than  a  vis  a  tergo  driving  it.  If  this  be  so, 
voluntary  and  involuntary  attention  differ  not  in  their 
fundamental  nature ;  the  actual  difference  being  that 
while  in  reflex  or  involuntary  attention  the  activity  of 
the  thought  is  such  as  immediately  to  arouse  and  hold 
consciousness  by  itself,  in  voluntary  attention  the  excita- 
tion reaches  the  proper  pitch  of  activity  only  by  help  of 
the  increments  of  energy — the  reflex  contributions,  so  to 
speak — which  it  receives  from  associated  ideas.  In  the 
one  case  consciousness  is  aroused  to  the  pitch  of  attention 
as  a  direct  reflex  act;  in  the  other  case,  through  the 
intermediate  aid  of  the  energies  reflected  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  thought  from  associated  ideas. 

It  is  well  known  that  a  greater  pain  causes  us  to  cease 
to  feel  a  less  pain  even  though  the  cause  of  the  latter  con- 
tinues in  operation  ;  the  consciousness  is  appropriated  by 
the  former,  and  there  is  none  left  for  the  latter  at  the 
same  moment.  In  like  manner,  we  are  undoubtedly  able 
in  some  measure  to  relieve  a  sharp  pain  by  biting  the 
tongue,  or  even  by  spasmodically  contracting  certain 
muscles ;  an  inhibitory  effect  being  produced  upon  the 
centre  in  which  the  pain  was  felt,  and  the  consciousness 
being  concerned  with  the  sensation  from  the  bitten  tongue 
or  with  the  muscular  sensibility  of  the  contracted  muscles. 
When  a  bodily  pain  precludes  attention  to  a  subject  of 
thought,  the  stimulated  sensory  centre  exerts  an  inhibitory 
effect  upon  the  supreme  cerebral  centres.  We  have  an 
instance  of  the  reverse  operation  when  great  mental 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  319 

excitement  produces  an  inhibitory  anaesthetic  effect :  a 
severe  wound  inflicted  during  the  excitement  of  battle 
may  not  be  felt  at  the  time  ;  persons  suffering  from  mania 
will  sometimes  sustain  or  inflict  on  themselves  the  severest 
injuries  without  apparently  feeling  the  least  pain  from 
them ;  the  convulsionists  of  St  Mddard  were  seemingly 
insensible  to  the  violent  blows,  the  so-called  "  consola- 
tions," with  which  the  on -lookers  vigorously  belaboured 
them.  These  facts  show  how  localized  a  function  con- 
sciousness may  be  in  the  brain,  and  seem  to  me  to  suit 
well  with  the  interpretation  which  I  have  given  of  the 
nature  of  attention. 

I  might  mention  many  other  facts  which  point  to 
the  same  conclusion,  but  it  will  suffice  now  to  call  to 
mind  the  phenomena  of  the  so-called  mesmeric  sleep. 
In  this  artificially  induced  state,  the  person  who  is  the 
subject  of  the  experiment  is  sometimes  insensible  to 
all  sensory  stimuli  except  the  sound  of  the  operator's 
voice,  and  it  is  certain  that  severe  surgical  operations 
have  been  performed  without  the  least  indication  of  suf- 
fering. He  is  unconscious  too  of  all  ideas  except  those 
which  the  operator  suggests  to  him,  and  is  accordingly 
under  their  influence  entirely,  their  substrata  being  alone 
active  ;  cannot  sit  down  if  he  is  told  that  he  cannot 
sit,  or  rise  from  a  chair  if  made  to  believe  that  he 
cannot  rise ;  he  becomes,  in  fact,  an  automatic  machine, 
dominated  by  the  ideas  that  are  aroused  into  action.  In 
somnambulism,  the  person  is  in  like  manner  unconscious 
of  all  ideas  except  those  which  constitute  his  dream,  and 
of  all  sensations  except  those  which  are  related  to  the 
ideas  of  his  dream.  His  senses  are  not  closed  entirely, 
but  they  are  only  open  to  such  impressions  as  are  in 
relation  with  the  ideas  of  the  dream  ;  this  phenomenon 
being  but  an  extreme  instance  of  that  operation  of  idea 
upon  sensory  ganglia  which  we  have  pointed  out  as  in- 
creasing the  susceptibility  of  the  sense,  and  producing 


320  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

sometimes  actual  hallucination.  He  acts  his  dream, 
insensible  the  while  to  other  sensory  stimuli  than  those 
which  are  necessary  to  enable  him  to  do  this;  these 
being  commonly,  as  we  should  expect,  such  as  are  de- 
rived from  the  sense  of  sight  and  the  muscular  sense. (8) 
Probably,  were  a  hound  thus  to  act  a  dream  of  hunting, 
the  sense  of  smell  would  be  alone  open  to  impressions. 
We  have  no  data  to  warrant  a  conjecture  as  to  the  actual 
condition  of  the  brain  under  these  circumstances ;  but  it 
is  not  impossible,  having  regard  to  the  manner  of  dis- 
tribution of  the  arteries,  that  the  state  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  in  the  brain  may  be  at  the  bottom  of  the 
phenomena.  We  know  that  the  vessels  are  contracted, 
and  that  much  less  blood  flows  through  the  brain,  during 
sleep,  the  full  force  and  activity  of  the  circulation  being 
restored  when  the  person  awakes;  we  know,  too,  that 
certain  arteries  supply  certain  areas  of  the  convolutions ; 
we  may  conjecture,  therefore,  that  in  the  dream  of  the 
somnambulist  the  activity  of  the  circulation  continues 
in  particular  vascular  areas,  in  consequence  perhaps  of  a 
stimulus  from  some  internal  organ  which  is  in  relation 
with  that  area,  and  that  the  functions  of  these  cerebral 
areas  persist  partially  in  consequence.  Whether  this  be 
the  physical  explanation  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  in  these 
abnormal  states  of  sleep  there  is  a  discontinuity  of  func- 
tion, portions  of  the  cortical  centres  being  cut  off  from 
intercourse  with  the  neighbouring  centres,  which  are  in 
a  state  of  repose,  and  discharging  their  function  inde- 
pendently of  them ;  the  ideas  aroused  are,  for  some  un- 
known physical  reason,  incapable  of  propagation  through 
neighbouring  plexuses. 

Let  me  briefly  summarize  and  bring  together  the  facts 
which  have  been  mentioned.  They  are  these  :  that  the 
idea  of  a  certain  sensation  being  about  to  occur  quickens 
the  sense  when  the  impression  is  made,  rendering  it  both 
more  acute  and  quick  to  feel ;  that  in  reflection  the  idea 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  321 

habitually  acts  upon  the  sensory  centre,  becoming  more 
definite  by  being  thus  figured  to  sense;  that  this  downward 
action  of  idea  upon  sense  is  sometimes  so  intense  as  to 
generate  an  actual  hallucination;  that  the  consequence  of 
the  excitation  of  the  sensory  centre  is  a  motor  innervation ; 
and  that  in  certain  anomalous  states,  when  a  particular  train 
of  mental  activity  is  going  on,  the  senses  are  open  only 
to  such  sensations  as  are  in  relation  with  the  current  of 
ideas,  the  person  being  capable  only  of  attending  to  these 
sensations.  But  this  limitation  of  attention  is  a  strictly 
physical  limitation  arising  from  the  isolated  excitation  of 
particular  ideational  currents,  and  the  consciousness  is 
the  result,  not  the  cause,  of  the  excitation.  The  psycho- 
logical mode  of  expression  puts  the  cart  before  the  horse  : 
die  problem  in  reflection  is  not,  as  it  is  said,  to  direct  con- 
sciousness, or  to  direct  the  attention  to  an  idea,  but  to 
arouse  consciousness  of  it  by  stirring  it  up  to  a  certain 
pitch  of  activity.  And  it  is  a  question  of  no  little  im- 
portance, whether  we  can  reflect  intently  without  either 
figuring  the  ideas  to  sense,  or  exciting  the  associated 
motor  intuitions  of  the  words  by  which  we  denote  them, 
and  making,  as  it  were,  a  mental  repetition  of  the 
word;  the  sensory  representations  and  the  motor  in- 
tuitions reacting  upon  one  another,  enhancing  the 
energy  of  the  percepto-motor  current  of  which  the 
idea  is  correlative,  and  so  maintaining  the  attention. 
I  venture  at  any  rate  to  pronounce  the  question  to  be 
one  well  deserving  of  more  consideration  than  it  has 
received. 

It  remains  to  say  something  more  concerning  the 
association  of  ideas.  The  anatomical  connections  of  a 
nerve-cell,  or  of  a  group  of  nerve-cells,  in  the  cerebral 
ganglia  do,  of  necessity,  limit  the  direction  and  extent 
of  action  upon  other  cells;  one  cell  cannot  act  on  other 
cells  indifferently,  for  it  may  be  deemed  tolerably  cer- 
tain that  as  the  conduction  in  nerve-fibres  demonstrably 


322  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

does  not  pass  from  one  to  another  except  by  continuity 
of  tissue,  so  the  activity  of  one  cell  cannot  be  communi- 
cated to  another  except  along  an  anastomosing  process. 
Before  a  nerve-cell  has  formed  its  connections  in  the 
convolutions  it  can  have  no  part  in  mental  function. 
Besides,  or  within,  this  necessary  limitation,  which  exists 
in  the  anatomical  constitution  of  the  nervous  centres, 
there  is  a  further  determination  of  the  manner  of  associa- 
tion by  the  individual  life  experience,  just  as  is  the  case 
with  movements.  "  Not  every  thought  to  every  thought 
succeeds  indifferently ; "  but,  as  all  ideas  have  been 
acquired  by  means  of  experience,  and  we  have  "no 
imagination  whereof  we  have  not  formerly  had  sense  in 
whole  or  in  parts,"  so  the  connections  which  ideas  have 
with  one  another  in  the  brain  must  answer  in  some 
manner  the  order  of  experience,  and  an  individual's 
habit  of  association  of  ideas  will  witness  to  the  influ- 
ence of  his  particular  education  and  surroundings.  The 
same  topic  will  give  rise  in  different  individuals  to  as 
many  different  trains  of  thought,  each  train  being  the 
result  of  a  line  of  suggestion  determined  by  the  pecu- 
liarity of  his  temperament,  and  by  the  education  of  his 
pursuit  in  life.  A  rumour  of  war  will  arouse  anxious 
ideas  respecting  the  state  of  the  funds  or  the  state  of 
trade  in  the  commercial  mind ;  the  politician  will  im- 
mediately bethink  himself  of  the  position  and  prospects 
of  nations  ;  and  the  soldier's  thoughts  will  be  of  promo- 
tion and  honours  and  military  arrangements.  Behind 
the  effects  of  education,  however,  are  those  inherited 
dispositions  which  have  so  much  weight  in  determining 
the  character  or  temperament  of  the  individual ;  what  his 
forefathers  have  felt,  thought  and  done,  though  he  has 
never  known  them,  assuredly  has  some  influence  upon 
what  he  will  be  inclined  to  feel,  think  and  do ;  he  has 
inherited  nervous  substrata  in  his  convolutions  which 
are  ready  to  take  on,  at  the  appropriate  stages  of  his 


v.j  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  323 

experience  in  life,  the  same  kind  of  function  which  they 
displayed  in  his  forefathers. 

Social  life  would  simply  be  rendered  impossible  if  we 
could  not  depend  upon  the  uniformity  of  the  laws  of 
nature  in  man  as  well  as  out  of  him  ;  if  one  idea  fol- 
lowed another  not  causally  but  casually,  it  would  be  all 
one  as  if  one  event  in  nature  occurred  without  connec- 
tion with  another.  That  one  idea  does  seemingly  follow 
another  casually,  or  at  any  rate  without  recognisable  co- 
herence, justifies  us,  we  are  in  the  habit  of  thinking,  in 
shutting  a  man  up  in  a  lunatic  asylum ;  and  one  of  the 
first  signs  of  insanity  confessedly  is  an  unaccountable 
change  in,  or  disruption  of,  the  particular  uniformity  of 
an  individual  character.  The  foundation  of  our  laws 
and  the  maxims  of  life  entirely  rest  upon  the  constancy 
of  laws  in  the  human  mind ;  "  a  prisoner  who  has  neither 
money  nor  interest,"  Hume  very  aptly  says,  "discovers 
the  impossibility  of  his  escape  as  well  when  he  considers 
the  obstinacy  of  the  gaoler  as  the  walls  and  bars  with 
which  he  is  surrounded ;  and,  in  all  attempts  for  his  free- 
dom, chooses  rather  to  work  upon  the  stone  and  iron  of 
the  one  than  upon  the  inflexible  nature  of  the  other." 
Although  ideas  are  thus  as  definitely  associated  in  the 
mind  by  physical  necessity  as  are  cause  and  effect  in 
external  nature,  yet,  because  sometimes  one  idea  has 
succeeded  another  in  our  experience  and  sometimes 
another,  it  is  not  certain  always  in  so  obscure  and  com- 
plex a  labyrinth  what  idea  shall  in  a  given  case  ensue ; 
only  this  is  certain,  that  it  shall  be  an  idea  which  has 
been  associated  with  it  at  one  time  or  another,  or  has 
something  similar  in  it — which  has  had  to  it  relations  of 
contiguity  in  time  or  place,  or  of  identity,  or  analogy, 
or  contrast  Necessity  is,  in  truth,  confessed  in  every 
deliberation  and  in  every  act  of  our  life.  When  we  call 
up  and  attend  to  an  idea  by  means  of  what  is  called  a 
voluntary  effort,  we  can  only  do  so  by  making  use  of 


324  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  fixed  laws  of  association  ;  we  attain  our  end  not  by 
a  sudden  and  direct  command  of  will,  but  by  pursuing 
trains  of  thought  likely  to  lead  to  the  subject  which  it  is 
desired  to  recollect :  not  otherwise  than  as  in  willing  a 
complex  movement  we  make  use  of  the  organised  co- 
hesion in  the  motor  centres.  When  we  are  reading,  or 
listening  to  a  conversation,  or  when  the  mind  is  in  a 
state  of  reverie,  associations  of  ideas  go  on  spontane- 
ously, without  any  effort  of  will,  and  even  without  con- 
sciousness of  the  train  of  thought,  and  we  may  be 
surprised  to  find  that  an  idea  sometimes  occurs  to  us 
in  this  way  through  the  revival  of  old  associations 
which  seemed  to  have  been  lost 

Because  each  one  has  a  certain  specific  nature  as  a 
human  being,  and  because  the  external  nature  in  re- 
lation with  which  each  one  exists  is  the  same,  therefore 
are  inevitably  formed  certain  general  associations  which 
cannot  without  great  difficulty,  or  anywise,  be  dissociated, 
just  as  different  movements  are  so  linked  together  in  all 
men  that  they  cannot  be  dissociated.  Such  are  what 
have  been  described  as  the  general  laws  of  association  of 
ideas — those  of  cause  and  effect,  of  contiguity  in  time 
and  space,  of  resemblance,  of  contrast ;  in  all  which  ways, 
it  is  true,  one  idea  may  follow  another,  though  also  pro- 
bably in  other  ways.  We  are  enabled,  however,  by  virtue 
of  the  general  laws  of  association  in  which  all  men  agree, 
to  foresee  the  general  character  of  human  belief,  to  pre- 
dict the  general  course  of  human  conduct,  and  to  estab. 
lish  laws  for  the  regulation  of  the  social  state.  The 
universality  which  is  supposed  to  belong  to  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  cause  and  effect,  of  the  uniformity  of 
nature,  of  time  and  space,  has  been  supposed  to  be- 
tray an  origin  beyond  experience,  and  many  subtle 
and  elaborate  arguments  have  been  set  forth  at  dif- 
ferent times  in  order  to  prove  that  they  never  could 
have  been  acquired  by  experience  only.  Nevertheless, 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  325 

it  is  hard  to  conceive  how  men,  formed  and  placed  as 
men  are,  could  have  failed  to  acquire  them,  and  still  more 
hard  to  conceive  how  they  should  ever  have  been  sup- 
posed to  have  any  meaning  outside  or  beyond  human 
experience — to  have  an  absolute  not  a  relative  truth. 
The  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  the  laws  of  nature — that 
the  setting  sun  will  rise  again,  that  the  leafless  trees  of 
winter  will  put  on  new  foliage  in  the  spring,  that  the  seed 
committed  to  the  earth  will  come  up  in  due  time  as  herb 
or  plant,  that  the  rains  will  descend  and  the  rivers  flow 
in  the  time  to  come  as  they  have  in  time  past,  that  that 
which  has  been  is  that  which  shall  be — is  a  belief  which 
is  developed  of  necessity  in  the  mind  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  that  nature  of  which  it  is  a  part  and  product. 
The  uniformity  of  nature  becomes  conscious  of  itself,  so 
to  speak,  in  the  mind  of  man ;  for  in  man,  a  part  of 
nature  and  developing  in  accordance  with  natural  laws, 
nature  attains  to  self-consciousness.  The  belief  does  not 
spring  up  at  once  in  the  mind  of  the  individual,  but  grows 
gradually  as  a  part  and  product  of  its  intellectual  growth  ; 
it  is  limited  at  first  to  some  particular  instance  in  which 
it  has  its  birth,  is  extended  successively  to  other  instances, 
gaining  strength  thereby,  receives  fresh  verification  from 
each  new  instance  of  uniformity  as  the  mind  comes  into 
more  intimate  and  special  relations  with  different  parts  of 
nature  by  the  discovery  of  new  facts  and  laws,  and  ac- 
quires at  last  such  a  certainty  and  universality  within 
human  experience  that  its  negation  becomes  inconceiv- 
able to  many  persons.  To  say  that  a  thing  is  inconceiv- 
able, let  it  be  noted  by  the  way,  is  to  declare  that  concep- 
tion has  limits  based  upon  experience,  not  to  limit  the 
possibilities  of  nature.  Is  it  not  true  of  animals  that 
they,  in  their  limited  sphere,  base  their  actions  upon  an 
instinctive  recognition  of  or  adaptation  to  the  uniformity 
of  nature?  It  is  not  probable  that  they  have,  like  us, 
the  conscious  belief,  but  it  is  implicitly  contained  or 


326  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

unconsciously  embodied  in  their  simpler  mental  organiza- 
tion, and  is  the  basis  of  many  of  their  actions.  Were  we 
to  conceive  a  tree  to  be  endowed  with  self-consciousness, 
and  thus  to  know  that  each  spring  it  put  forth  buds,  and 
in  due  season  produced  fruit  after  its  kind,  and  not  after 
any  other  kind,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  it  would 
not  have  a  conviction  of  the  uniformity  of  nature ;  its 
function  as  a  fruit-bearer  after  its  kind  being  a  special 
expression  of  this  uniformity.  In  man  himself  the  in- 
stinctive feeling  of  uniformity  is  antecedent  to  the  con- 
scious enunciation  of  the  belief;  the  reasoned  utterance 
is  the  explicit  avowal  of  what  was  implicit  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  mental  organization. 

It  by  no  means  follows  that  the  present  uniformity  of 
nature  will  continue  for  ever  because  we  have  a  con- 
viction of  the  reign  of  fixed  and  unalterable  laws.  It  is 
not  impossible  to  conceive  a  gradual  or  a  violent  change 
taking  place  in  the  order  of  nature,  as  it  is  known  to 
us,  for  it  is  certain  that  finite  experience  will  not  war- 
rant us  in  making  an  induction  of  eternal  uniformity 
which  infinite  experience  alone  could  warrant.  If  it  be 
incredible  that  a  miracle,  in  the  sense  of  a  violation  of 
the  laws  of  nature,  has  taken  place  in  the  past  to  which 
the  human  mind  can  look  back,  it  is  not  incredible 
that  the  whole  course  of  nature  may  be  changed,  and 
that  new  laws  may  come  into  action,  in  the  future.  For 
anything  we  know,  a  great  catastrophe  might  occur  at  any 
moment  to  the  earth  which  is  our  home,  and  no  one  be 
left  to  tell  the  tale  of  it  The  truth  is  that  we  are  much 
more  apt  to  believe  than  to  doubt  the  continued  associa- 
tion of  events  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  see 
happen  together ;  in  this  respect  resembling  children  who 
accept  statements  at  first  without  hesitation,  and  antici- 
pate that  what  has  happened  a  few  times  will  happen 
again  under  like  circumstances ;  and  savages,  to  whom  a 
new  experience  produces  a  positive  shock  and  is  most 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  327 

unwelcome,  and  who  cannot  conceive  that  any  other 
justification  of  a  belief  or  custom  can  be  needed  than 
that  it  was  the  custom  or  the  belief  of  their  forefathers. 
An  illustration  of  the  same  tendency  is  seen  in  the 
hostility  to  a  new  idea  which  is  so  often  exhibited  by 
cultivated  individuals  and  nations,  who  view  with  horror 
the  threatened  disruption  of  the  accustomed  order  of 
their  thoughts,  and  look  upon  scepticism,  which  really  is 
a  condition  of  intellectual  development,  as  a  most  danger- 
ous enemy  to  the  best  interests  of  mankind.  To  be 
"  wise  above  that  which  is  written  "  exposes  a  man  to 
obloquy  as  an  "  infidel "  or  "  unbelieving  dog ; "  and 
yet  it  is  only  by  being  wise  above  that  which  is  written 
that  the  race  progresses. 

The  conception  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  I  hold 
then  to  be  an  induction  which  has  been  formed  by  the 
human  race  through  experience,  and  there  is  good  reason 
to  suppose  that  other  fundamental  ideas  have  the  same 
foundation.  It  is  becoming  day  by  day  more  difficult 
to  understand  why  there  should  ever  have  been  such 
eager  and  long-standing  disputes  as  have  prevailed 
between  the  supporters  of  the  doctrine  that  all  know- 
ledge is  gained  by  experience — d  posteriori,  and  the  sup- 
porters of  the  doctrine  that  the  mind  contributes  to  the 
result  an  element  which  is  above  experience — &  priori. 
In  simple  perception,  as  we  have  seen,  the  mind,  after  the 
first  experience,  always  contributes  its  element  Had 
each  party  resolved  to  come  to  a  clear  and  precise  under- 
standing of  what  the  other  meant  by  the  terms  used,  one 
is  tempted  to  think  that  the  dispute  must  have  fallen  to 
the  ground. 

No  one  will  deny  that  the  construction  of  the  human 
organism,  mental  and  physical,  is  such  that  certain 
results  will  ensue  when  it  is  placed  in  certain  con- 
ditions;  when  the  nipple  is  put  between  the  new-born 
infant's  lips  it  will  suck,  before  it  has  learnt  to  do  so  J 


328  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAP. 

when  food  is  put  into  the  mouth,  saliva  will  flow,  the 
food  be  swallowed,  and  subsequently  digested  and 
assimilated;  and,  in  like  manner,  when  objects  and 
events  are  presented  to  the  senses  there  will  be  formed 
what  are  called  ideas,  and  the  mind  will  function  along 
certain  definite  lines  or  paths  which  are  known  as  per- 
ception, memory,  reasoning,  emotion,  and  volition.  In 
a  well-constituted  brain,  placed  under  suitable  conditions, 
such  results  will  ensue,  nor  will  they  ensue  in  any  brain, 
however  well  constituted,  unless  the  external  conditions 
be  present ;  wherefore  experience  is  the  essential  condi- 
tion of  the  development  of  every  kind  of  knowledge — 
not  less  so  than  air  and  food  are  essential  to  any  sort  of 
development  of  the  organism.  But  just  as  all  the  air 
and  food  in  the  world  would  be  useless  to  the  organism, 
would  have  no  more  nutritive  effect  upon  it  than  upon  a 
statue  of  bronze,  if  it  had  not  the  power  of  digestion  and 
assimilation,  so  all  the  objects  in  the  world  might  be 
presented  in  vain  to  senses  capable  of  their  respective 
functions,  if  the  brain  had  not  a  power  of  appropriating 
the  effects  in  the  development  of  the  various  functions  of 
its  mental  organization.  The  idiot,  like  the  animal,  may 
see,  hear,  smell,  taste,  feel,  and  yet  be  incapable  of 
reasoning  to  the  end  of  its  life.  It  is  plain,  then,  that 
the  brain  or  mind  does  contribute  an  essential  factor  to 
the  result  which  we  call  knowledge,  call  this  factor  what 
we  will. 

Let  it  not  be  overlooked,  moreover,  that  the  lines  of 
mental  function  in  man  are  as  definite,  as  necessary, 
as  the  lines  of  instinct  in  bees  or  ants ;  we  cannot 
do  otherwise  than  perceive,  remember,  reason,  feel  as 
other  men  do — cannot  transcend  these  lines  any  more 
than  we  can  transcend  the  modes  in  which  other  men 
move.  Bees  and  ants  appear  stupid  when  taken  out 
of  the  tracks  of  their  instincts,  because  they  cannot 
adapt  themselves  to  unfamiliar  experiences  to  which  we 


V.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  329 

with  our  superior  insight  perceive  the  easiest  modes  of 
adaptation.  We  in  like  manner  should  appear  not  less 
stupid  if  taken  out  of  the  automatic  grooves  of  our  mental 
functions,  to  a  higher  order  of  beings  furnished  with 
senses  capable  of  unveiling  varied  and  complex  processes 
of  nature  that  are  utterly  inaccessible  to  us,  and  endowed 
with  such  superior  and  more  varied  mental  faculties  as 
would  enable  them  to  co-ordinate  the  variety  of  impres- 
sions into  a  unity  of  effect.  When  in  olden  times  twenty 
men  laboured  hard  to  accomplish  that  which  one  man  can 
now,  in  consequence  of  discoveries  in  mechanics,  do 
with  comparative  ease,  it  would  have  seemed  to  one 
watching  them,  who  was  possessed  of  these  discoveries, 
gross  stupidity  that  they  should  go  on  automatically  in 
their  routine  of  thought  and  action,  and  fail  to  perceive 
the  means  of  instant  relief  which  lay  close  at  hand. 

Admitting  that  the  mind  contributes  an  essential  factor 
in  the  development  of  knowledge,  the  question  is  as  to 
the  nature  of  this  mental  factor.  All  the  varieties  of 
mankind  have  the  same  general  type  of  cerebral  con- 
formation ;  they  have  the  same  number  and  kind  of 
senses,  and  the  same  mechanisms  of  movements,  which 
act  in  an  uniform  manner ;  therefore  they  have  certain 
common  fundamental  ideas.  But  when  the  mental 
phenomena  of  one  of  the  lowest  savages  are  contrasted 
with  those  of  an  intelligent  European,  a  very  wide  differ- 
ence is  perceived,  notwithstanding  that  some  are  common 
to  both ;  and  if  a  savage  child  and  an  European  child 
were  subjected  to  the  same  external  conditions  from  the 
first  moment  of  life  to  the  age  of  fullest  vigour,  it  can- 
not be  doubted  that  there  would  still  be  a  vast  difference 
between  their  mental  phenomena.  The  matter  is  not  one 
of  external  conditions  alone,  of  mere  acquisition  by  ex- 
perience ;  acquisition  implying  a  power  to  acquire,  and 
the  difference  in  the  two  cases  being  the  consequence  of 
differences  in  the  native  powers  of  acquisition.  It  is 


330  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

evident  then  that  the  value  of  the  connate  mental  factor 
in  a  process  of  knowledge  differs  much  in  different  human 
beings,  and  that  the  knowledge  which  some  men  are 
capable  of  acquiring  cannot  be  acquired  by  other  men, 
however  similar  the  conditions  of  life,  any  more  than 
the  extraordinary  height  of  stature  or  weight  of  body 
which  one  man  reaches  can  be  reached  by  all  men. 

If  it  be  affirmed  by  those  who  uphold  the  d  priori 
origin  of  certain  ideas  that  the  same  fundamental  forms 
are  imposed  by  the  mind  upon  the  materials  of  its 
knowledge  in  every  case,  and  that  the  difference  in  the 
value  of  the  mental  factors  contributed  is  one  of  de- 
gree only,  it  will  still  be  a  question  whence  the  differ- 
ent degree  of  value  possessed  by  one  individual  over 
another  has  been  derived.  The  obvious  answer  is  that  the 
native  superiority  of  organization  is  the  result  of  inherit- 
ance.* The  savage  has  a  less  capacity  of  acquiring  know- 
ledge than  the  European,  because  his  brain  is  fashioned 
after  the  less  developed  type  of  the  brains  of  his  fore- 
fathers, while  the  European  inherits  the  superior  organiza- 
tion and  capacity  of  the  brains  of  his  forefathers :  the 
plus  mental  factor  contributed  by  the  latter  is  a  native 
endowment  inherited  from  ancestors  and  independent  of 
his  individual  experience.  He  has  nervous  substrata  in 

*  In  the  first  edition  of  his  great  work  on  the  Origin  of  Species, 
published  in  1859,  Mr.  Darwin  said — "  Psychology  will  be  based  on 
a  new  foundation,  that  of  the  necessary  acquirement  of  each  mental 
power  and  capacity  by  gradation,"  p.  488  ;  foreseeing  at  that 
time,  as  Mr.  Huxley  has  remarked,  that  man  and  his  highest  faculties 
are  as  much  products  of  evolution  as  the  humblest  plant.  "  Every 
kind  of  improvement,  static  or  dynamic,  that  has  been  realised  in 
the  individual  tends  to  perpetuate  itself  by  generation  in  the  species. 
Thus  by  heredity  modifications  that  were  at  first  artificial  are 
rendered  spontaneous."  (CoMTE,  Positive  Polity^  voL  i.,  p.  493t 
Eng.  Translation).  He  points  out  how  this  results  necessarily  in 
the  gradual  elevation  of  the  race,  insisting  notwithstanding  on 
the  fixity  of  species. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  331 

his  convolutions  which  the  savage  has  not.  We  have  no 
more  reason  to  doubt  this  than  to  doubt  that  the  pointer 
dog  is  indebted  to  inheritance  for  the  facility  with  which  it 
learns  to  point.  So  far,  then,  those  who  uphold  the  &  priori 
doctrine  are  right  in  asserting  that  all  knowledge  does 
not  come  to  the  individual  from  the  senses,  but  that  the 
constitution  of  mind  imposes  upon  the  materials  sup- 
plied by  the  senses  forms  or  intuitions  which  are  an  im- 
portant element  in  the  result — in  other  words,  deter- 
mines the  lines  of  necessary  function. 

We  are  now  brought  to  another  question  :  whether  these 
forms,  intuitions,  fundamental  ideas,  categories  of  the 
understanding,  mental  aptitudes,  or  by  whatever  other 
name  they  may  be  called,  have  not  themselves  been  ac- 
quired by  experience,  not  of  the  individual  but  of  the 
race,  not  of  the  unit  but  of  the  organism  of  mankind. 
It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Darwinian  theory 
that  advantageous  bodily  and  mental  modifications  which 
arise  from  the  tendency  to  the  formation  of  variations  are 
inherited,  and  that  thus  by  the  accumulation  of  modifica- 
tions through  countless  generations  the  mental  faculties 
of  man  have  been  acquired  by  gradation.  Time  was, 
we  know,  when  Europe  was  overrun  by  beings  who  were 
no  higher  than  existing  savages,  and  who,  could  we 
imagine  them  living  in  the  complex  social  system  of  to- 
day, would  be  as  much  out  of  place,  as  little  able  to 
adapt  themselves  to  it  and  to  acquire  what  such  adapta- 
tion implies,  as  the  savage ;  nevertheless  they  were  our 
ancestors.  All  the  mental  endowments,  therefore,  in 
which  we  surpass  them  and  all  the  superiority  of  cerebral 
organization  which  such  endowments  imply,  have  been 
acquired  by  the  accumulated  effects  of  experience  and 
their  transmission  through  generations.  They  are  the 
organically  registered  results  of  the  more  complex  and 
special  relations  between  man  and  nature  which  have 
been  gradually  effected  through  the  ages ;  wherefore  they 


332  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

determine  the  forms  of  his  thinking  and  feeling,  not  other- 
wise than  as  the  conformation  and  disposition  of  the  mus- 
cles determine  the  manner  of  his  walking.  They  are 
independent  of  the  experience  of  the  individual,  but  not 
of  the  experience  of  the  race. 

To  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  genesis  of  these  higher 
native  capacities  of  mind,  induction  must  begin  with  mind 
in  its  most  primitive  state,  not,  as  metaphysicians  do,  with 
mind  in  its  most  complex  and  highly  developed  state. 
It  will  be  found  that  factors  which  appear  to  be  ultimate 
and  incapable  of  analysis  in  the  latter  are  neither  ultimate 
nor  incapable  of  analysis  when  we  study  their  organic 
evolution.  They  make  a  vital  mistake  who,  separating 
mind  from  nature  and  its  laws  by  an  impassable  barrier, 
reject  the  doctrine  of  mental  evolution,  instead  of  iden- 
tifying mind  with  the  organism  and  proceeding  to 
enquire  patiently  into  the  common  laws  of  their  evolu- 
tion. We  grant  them  the  general  potentialities  of  feel- 
ings and  ideas  which  they  call  mental  forms,  the  d 
priori  forms  of  space,  time,  causality,  moral  sense,  but 
we  go  back  to  trace  their  origin  and  evolution  in  the 
race,  just  as  we  trace  the  origin  and  evolution  of  the 
more  special  forms  of  feeling  and  thought  which  are 
manifested  by  each  individual  in  consequence  of  his 
special  inheritance.  The  constancy  and  universality  of 
the  general  forms  or  categories  of  thought  and  feeling 
are  no  more  wonderful  than  it  is'  wonderful  that  all 
men  should  see,  hear,  taste,  smell  and  feel  in  the  same 
way ;  they  have  been  fashioned,  as  the  senses  have  been 
fashioned,  by  progressive  internal  adaptation  to  external 
conditions  through  the  long  records  of  ages. 

When  the  Darwinian  doctrine  of  evolution  is  thus  ap- 
plied to  mind,  the  dispute  between  those  who  take  the 
d  priori  side  and  those  who  take  the  d  posteriori  side 
might  seem  to  be  at  an  end.  But  it  is  not ;  the  argu- 
ment of  the  former,  when  pursued  to  its  logical  conse- 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  333 

quences,  being  that  the  connate  mental  forms  have  not 
been  derived  from  experience  at  all ;  that  they  are  really 
of  supersensible  origin,  antecedent  to  and  transcending 
all  experience  alike  of  the  race  and  of  the  individual. 
That  our  senses  never  have  made  us,  nor  do  now  make 
us,  nor,  being  what  they  are,  ever  can  make  us  ac- 
quainted with  more  than  a  very  small  part  of  nature, 
is  a  proposition  which  cannot  be  seriously  disputed. 
Assuredly  what  we  learn  concerning  the  processes  of 
nature  by  any  sense  is  but  a  small  fraction  of  what 
we  do  not  learn  and  is  to  be  learned.  But  it  is  neces- 
sary here  to  distinguish  between  that  which  lies  beyond 
the  reach  of  our  senses  because  of  their  limitation, 
but  of  which  our  senses  might  give  us  information 
if  they  could  be  brought  into  relation  with  it,  and  may 
some  day  give  us  information,  and  that  which  could 
not  in  any  cas^  be  known  through  sense,  but  which  is 
assumed  to  be  known  through  a  faculty  of  intellectual 
intuition,  ecstatic  contemplation,  or  spiritual  insight.  The 
question  is  whether  man  has  or  ever  had  any  such  extra- 
ordinary faculty  of  gaining  ideas  from  a  higher  source, 
and  of  greater  validity,  than  those  which  are  gained 
through  experience ;  in  other  words,  whether  he  is  ever 
endowed  with  a  supersensible  sense  which  brings  him  into 
relations  with  the  infinite  and  absolute.  Let  the  faculty 
be  admitted  for  argument's  sake ;  it  would  not  then 
follow  necessarily  that  'the  so-called  fundamental  ideas 
about  which  the  present  dispute  is  were  acquired  through 
it ;  on  the  contrary,  it  might  still  be  argued  that  they  were 
inductive  acquisitions  of  the  race,  could  be  clearly  traced 
as  such  in  its  development,  and  had  only  the  validity  of 
inductions ;  and  I  know  not  how  the  argument  could  be 
successfully  encountered.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that 
argument  of  any  kind  would  be  the  idlest  waste  of  labour 
in  face  of  a  capacity  of  receiving  supersensible  revela- 
tions, a  faculty  of  sublime  intuition ;  those  who  possess 


334  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

it  moving  in  an  intellectual  sphere  to  which  the  common 
processes  of  reasoning  cannot  reach.  But  if  man's 
superiority  to  other  animals  lies  in  his  higher  and  more 
complex  organism,  and  if  his  mind,  like  animal  mind,  is 
a  function  of  organization,  a  part  of  nature  the  evolution 
whereof  implies  the  most  complex  and  subtle  combina- 
tions of  matter  and  corresponding  complexities  of  energy, 
then  the  terms  of  such  a  discussion  are  meaningless  im- 
becilities. Supersensible  intuition  belongs  to  the  same 
order  of  ideas  as  supersensible  pregnancy;  and  one  might 
as  well  discuss  the  foolish  question  whether  pregnancy  is 
ever  of  supersensible  origin. 

Within  the  general  forms  of  thought  which  are  com- 
mon to  all  men  there  are  numerous  subordinate  differ- 
ences ;  the  special  character  of  an  individual's  association 
of  ideas  being  determined  partly  by  his  original  nature, 
and  partly  by  his  special  education  and  life-experience. 
That  natural  differences  in  the  mental  susceptibilities  of 
different  persons  do  influence  the  character  of  their  asso- 
ciation of  ideas,  is  shown,  as  Dr.  Priestley  long  since 
pointed  out,*  by  the  greater  ease  with  which  some  men 
associate  those  co  existences  of  sensory  perceptions  which 
combine  to  constitute  the  idea  of  an  object,  while  others 
associate  more  readily  those  successive  sensory  impres- 
sions which  go  to  form  the  idea  of  an  event.  These  dif- 
ferent tendencies  and  dispositions  are  really  at  the 
foundation  of  two  different  types'  of  mind.  In  the  for- 
mer case,  there  is  a  mind  attentive  to  the  discrimination 
of  impressions,  skilful  in  discernment,  and  susceptible  to 
the  pleasurable  and  painful  properties  of  things— in  fact, 
a  mind  good  at  description,  and  fond  of  natural  history  ; 
in  the  latter  case,  there  is  a  mind  observant  of  the  order 
of  occurrence  of  phenomena,  prone  to  the  investigation 
of  the  genesis  of  things,  or  the  connection  of  cause  and 
effect — in  fact,  a  philosophic  intellect,  affecting  science 
*  In  his  Introduction  to  Hartley. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  33$ 

and  abstract  truth,  to  which  an  event  that  can  be  nowise 
explained  or  displayed  as  an  evolution  of  antecedent 
causes  is  a  painful  tribulation.  Such  mind  is  at  the  oppo- 
site end  of  the  scale  to  that  of  the  "  poor  idiot  born," 
who,  by  reason  of  his  defective  cerebral  constitution,  has 
but  few  ideas,  and  cannot  duly  associate  those  few,  just 
as  he  is  capable  of  but  few  imperfectly  associated  move- 
ments. Forget  not,  however,  that  between  the  idiot  at 
the  bottom  of  the  scale  of  human  life,  and  the  philoso- 
pher at  its  summit,  there  are  to  be  met  with  beings  repre- 
senting every  grade  of  the  transition. 

Special  adaptations  to  particular  circumstances  of  life 
also  concur  to  lay  the  foundation  of  individual  habits  of 
thought  and  conduct ;  the  direction  of  such  habits  being 
sometimes  determined  in  the  first  instance  by  the  suscep- 
tibility of  a  particular  sense,  whereby  it  is  affected  plea- 
surably  by  certain  impressions.  The  successful  tact  or 
skill  of  one  man  in  circumstances  in  which  the  awkward- 
ness or  failure  of  another  is  striking,  is  the  consequence 
of  a  rapid  association  of  ideas  which  has,  from  repeated 
special  experience,  become  so  familiar,  so  much  a  habit, 
as  to  appear  like  an  intuition.  In  such  case  the  group 
or  series  of  ideas  is  so  closely  united,  so  firmly  organized, 
as  to  behave  almost  as  one  idea;  while  the  excitation, 
though  sufficient  for  the  desired  end,  does  not  rise  to 
such  a  height  as  to  produce  consciousness.*  There  is 

*  "  Not  only  do  simple  ideas,  by  strong  association,  run  together, 
and  form  complex  ideas  ;  but  a  complex  idea,  when  the  simple  ideas 
which  compose  it  have  become  so  consolidated  that  it  always  appears 
as  one,  is  capable  of  entering  into  combinations  with  other  ideas, 
both  simple  and  complex.  Thus  two  complex  ideas  may  be  united 
together  by  a  strong  association,  and  coalesce  into  one,  in  the  same 
manner  as  two  or  more  simple  ideas  coalesce  into  one.  This  union 
of  two  complex  ideas  into  one,  Dr.  Hartley  has  called  a  duplex 
idea.  Two  also  of  these  duplex  ideas,  or  doubly  compounded 
ideas,  may  unite  into  one  ;  and  these,  again,  into  other  compounds 
without  end." "  How  many  complex  or  duplex  ideas  are 


J36  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

a  coalescence  or  integration  of  ideas  into  a  compound 
idea,  just  as  there  is  a  coalescence  or  integration  of  sen- 
sations in  the  idea ;  and  so  completely,  that  just  as  it  is 
difficult  sometimes  to  analyse  the  idea  into  its  compound 
sense-elements,  so  it  is  difficult  to  analyse  the  complex 
compound  idea  into  its  component  single  ideas.  With- 
out these  groups  of  coalesced  ideas,  which,  as  before 
said,  may  be  compared  with  combinations  of  movements 
that  are  acquired  at  first  by  practice  and  afterwards  put 
in  action  by  an  impulse  of  will  as  easily  as  a  simple 
movement,  it  would  be  necessary  on  each  occasion  of 
thinking  to  go  through  the  elementary  process  of  acquiring 
them,  just  as  a  child  must  at  first  go  through  the  element- 
ary process  of  spelling  the  separate  letters  in  a  word  or 
the  separate  words  in  a  sentence,  which  he  can  afterwards 
dispense  with,  and  no  progress  in  mental  development 
would  be  possible.  The  more  of  these  complex  ideas 
there  are  organized  in  the  mind,  the  more  quick,  free 
and  skilful  will  the  thinking  be.  Even  the  instantaneous 
and  acute  judgment  of  a  much  experienced  and  well- 
trained  mind,  which  is  sometimes  so  rapid  as  to  look  like 
an  instinct  or  intuition,  is  founded  upon  a  previous  care- 
ful training  in  observation  and  reflection ;  it  depends  in 
reality  on  an  excellent  association  of  ideas  that  has  been 
organized  in  correspondence  with,  or  adaptation  to,  the 
co-existences  and  successions  in  external  nature  ;  and 
thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  even  the  judgment  of  an  indi- 
vidual in  his  particular  relations  of  life  becomes  almost 
automatic. 

When  it  is  said,  again,  that  a  man's  character  is  com- 
pletely formed,  we  express  thereby  the  fact  that  he 
has  acquired  certain  definite  combinations  and  associa- 
tions of  ideas  which,  firmly  organized,  henceforth  avail 

all  united  in  the  idea  of  furniture  ?  How  many  more  in  the  idea  of 
merchandise  ?  How  many  more  in  the  idea  called  Every  Thing?  " 
— J .  Mill,  op.  cit.  p.  82. 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  337 

him  in  the  different  circumstances  of  life.  Could  we 
unravel  backwards  the  complexities  of  his  mental  fabric, 
or  decompose  it  by  gradual  steps  in  the  retrograde  order 
of  its  composition,  we  should  disclose  the  successive 
steps  of  his  gradually  progressing  adaptation  to  the  com- 
plex circumstances  of  his  surroundings  :  we  should  have 
the  history  of  his  life-experience,  in  the  reverse  order  of 
its  acquisition,  laid  bare  in  the  unwinding  of  his  mental 
plexuses.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  if  we  had  a  complete 
knowledge  of  the  inner  nature  of  an  individual,  if  we 
could  penetrate  that  most  exquisitely  organized  fabric  of 
thought  which  by  reason  of  his  particular  education  and 
life-experience  has  been  grafted  on  the  original  capabili- 
ties, it  would  be  possible  to  foretell  with  certainty  his 
mode  of  thought  and  conduct  under  any  given  circum- 
stances. Is  not  this  a  prediction  which,  as  it  is,  those 
who  know  a  man  best  can  often  make  with  close  approxi- 
mation to  truth  ?  But  inasmuch  as  no  two  minds  are 
exactly  alike  originally,  and  as  no  two  persons  have  pre- 
cisely similar  experiences,  the  specialities  of  human  con- 
ditions being  infinite  in  variety,  we  cannot  obtain  the 
exact  and  complete  elements  for  a  correct  and  definite 
judgment  respecting  the  operation  of  a  given  cause  upon 
any  individual.  None  the  less  true  is  it  that  every  cause 
does  operate  definitely  by  as  stern  a  necessity  as  any 
which  exists  in  physical  nature. 

Once  more,  then,  it  is  rendered  evident  how  necessary 
to  a  complete  psychology  of  the  individual  is  the  con- 
sideration of  the  circumstances  in  which  he  has  lived  and 
in  relation  to  which  he  has  developed,  as  well  as  the  ob- 
servation of  his  habits  of  thought,  feeling,  and  action. 
From  what  has  been  said  of  ideas  and  their  associations, 
it  is  obvious  that  in  the  same  language,  when  used  by 
different  people,  there  must  often  be  considerable  differ- 
ence in  regard  to  the  fulness  and  exactness  of  the  ideas 
conveyed  by  it.  (9)  In  translation  from  one  language  to 


333  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

another  it  plainly  appears  that  ideas  which  have  a  general 
resemblance  have  yet  certain  special  differences  accord- 
ing to  the  depth  of  thought,  the  religion,  the  manners, 
the  customs  of  the  different  nations ;  it  is  as  hard  a 
matter  to  convey  adequately  in  the  French  language  the 
meaning  of  German  philosophy  as  it  is  to  express  ade- 
quately, by  the  corresponding  German  words,  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  French  names  for  different  shades  of 
elegant  vice  or  elegant  cookery.  And  whosoever  enters 
upon  the  study  of  psychology  with  the  assumption  that 
an  idea  deemed  or  called  the  same  has  the  same  con- 
stant value  in  different  people  of  the  same  nation,  will  be 
led  into  the  vainest  errors  by  so  false  a  metaphysical 
conception.  Do  not  men  owe  most  of  their  errors  and 
disputes  to  the  fact  that  they  cannot  come  to  a  right 
understanding  of  words  ?  How  should  they,  indeed, 
when  the  same  word  frequently  signifies  an  idea  at  very 
different  stages  of  its  evolution  ? 

It  remains  only  to  add  here,  that  the  successive  forma- 
tion of  ideas  in  mental  development  and  the  progressive 
complexity  of  their  association  and  of  their  interaction  in 
the  supreme  centres  of  the  brain  illustrate,  as  do  the 
development  of  the  spinal  centres  and  the  development  of 
the  sensory  centres,  an  increasing  organic  specialization 
in  the  relations  of  man  to  external  nature ;  that  the  law 
of  progress  from  the  general  and  simple  to  the  special 
and  complex  has  sway  here  as  elsewhere  in  organic 
development. 

Thus  far,  then,  we  have  exhibited  the  path  of  distri- 
bution for  the  energy  of  an  idea  when  it  does  not  pass 
outwards  in  a  direct  reaction  to  the  stimulus  from  with- 
out :  it  travels  from  cell-group  to  cell-group  within  the 
cortical  layers  of  the  hemispheres,  and  thus  gives  rise  to 
reflection.  But  at  the  end  of  all  this  wandering  or  of  the 
various  transformations,  as  the  final  result  of  reflection, 
there  may  still  be  a  reaction  downwards  and  consequent 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  339 

outward  activity  of  the  individual.  When  that  takes  place 
it  is  volitional  action.  The  will,  abstractly  speaking,  is  the 
resultant  of  the  complex  interaction  of  the  supreme  gan- 
glionic  cerebral  plexuses;  these  constituting  a  complicated 
mechanism  which  intervenes  between  the  ingoing  and  the 
outgoing  currents.  We  ascend  gradually  to  this  highest 
manifestation  of  force  by  tracing  upwards  the  fundamental 
reaction  of  nerve-cell  through  reflex  action,  sensori-motor 
action,  and  ideo-motor  action  :  in  our  knowledge  of  the 
more  simple  phenomena  we  obtain  a  light  which  lightens 
the  path  of  study  of  phenomena  which  are  more  complex 
and  obscure.  As,  however,  there  is  present  in  the  action  of 
will  some  desire  of  a  good  to  be  obtained  or  of  an  evil 
to  be  shunned,  which  imparts  its  driving  force,  it  will  be 
proper,  before  considering  the  nature  of  volition,  to  deal 
with  the  emotions.  To  them,  therefore,  shall  the  next 
chapter  be  devoted. 

NOTES. 

1  (p.  277). — "I  cannot  but  think  that  the  two  main  articles  of 
belief  which  have  been  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  Indian — namely, 
the  Great  Spirit  or  Creator,  and  the  Happy  Hunting-grounds  in  a 
future  world, — are  the  results  of  missionary  teaching,  the  work  of 
the  Fathers  Hennepin,  Marquette,  and  their  noble  army  of  martyred 
Jesuit  followers."  ....  The  Manitou,  which  we  are  obliged  to 
translate  "Spirit,"  exists  everywhere  ;  they  believe  there  is  a  manitou 
in  water,  in  fire,  in  stars,  in  grass,  &c. ;  it  is  the  essence  of  Fetishism. 
"  It  is  doubtful  whether  these  savages  ever  grasped  the  idea  of  a 
human  soul."  ....  "  I  do  not  believe  that  an  Indian  of  the 
plains  ever  became  a  Christian.  He  must  first  be  humanized,  then 
civilized,  and,  lastly,  Christianized  ;  and,  as  has  been  said  before,  I 
doubt  his  surviving  the  operation." — The  City  of  the  Saints,  by 
R.  F.  Burton,  p.  133. 

2  (/.  277). — "There  is  no  other  act  of  man's  mind  that  I  can 
remember,  naturally  planted  in  him,  so  as  to  need  no  other  thing  in 
the  exercise  of  it,  but  to  be  born  a  man  and  live  with  the  use  of  his 
five  senses.  Those  other  faculties  of  which  I  shall  speak  by  and 
by,  and  which  seem  proper  to  man  only,  are  acquired  and  increased 


340  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

by  study  and  industry,  and  of  most  men  learned  by  instruction  and 
discipline  ;  and  proceed  all  from  the  invention  of  word  and  speech." 
IIOBBES,  Leviathan,  ch.  iii. 

3  (/.  278).  —"The  first  consideration  I  have  upon  the  subject  of 
the  senses  is  that  I  make  a  doubt  whether  or  no  man  b*  furnished 
with  all  natural  senses.  I  see  several  animals  who  live  an  entire 
and  perfect  life,  some  without  sight,  others  without  hearing ;  who 
knows  whether  to  us  also,  one,  two,  three,  or  many  other  senses 
may  not  be  wanting?  For  if  any  one  be  wanting,  our  examination 
cannot  discover  the  defect."  "  Tis  the  privilege  of  the  senses  to 
be  the  utmost  limit  of  our  discovery  ;  there  is  nothing  beyond  them 
that  can  assist  us  in  exploration,  not  so  much  as  one  sense  in  the 
discovery  of  another."  .... 

"There  is  no  sense  that  has  not  a  mighty  dominion,  and  that  does 
not  by  its  power  introduce  an  infinite  number  of  knowledges.  If  we 
were  defective  in  the  intelligence  of  sounds,  of  harmony,  and  of  the 
voice,  it  would  cause  an  unimaginable  confusion  in  all  the  rest  of 
our  science  ;  for,  besides  what  belongs  to  the  proper  effect  of  every 
sense,  how  many  arguments,  consequences,  and  conclusions,  do  we 
draw  to  other  things,  by  comparing  one  sense  with  another  ?  Let 
an  understanding  man  imagine  human  nature  originally  produced 
without  the  sense  of  seeing,  and  consider  what  ignorance  and  trouble 
such  a  defect  would  bring  upon  him,  what  a  darkness  and  blindness 
in  the  soul ;  he  will  then  see  by  that  of  how  great  importance  to  the 
knowledge  of  truth  the  privation  of  such  another  sense,  or  of  two  or 
three,  should  we  be  so  deprived,  would  be.  We  have  formed  a 
truth  by  the  concurrence  of  our  five  senses  ;  but,  perhaps,  we  should 
have  the  consent  and  contribution  cf  eight  or  ten  to  make  a  certain 
discovery  of  it  in  its  essence."— MONTAIGNE'S  Essays. 

4  (p.  278). — "For  what  is  meant  by  innate?  If  innate  be  equiva- 
lent to  natural,  then  all  the  perceptions  and  ideas  of  the  mind  must 
be  allowed  to  be  innate  or  natural,  in  whatever  sense  we  take  the 
latter  words,  whether  in  opposition  to  what  is  uncommon,  artificial, 
or  miraculous.  If  by  innate  be  meant  contemporary  to  our  birth, 
the  dispute  seems  to  be  frivolous  ;  nor  is  it  worth  while  to  inquire  at 
what  time  thinking  begins,  whether  before,  at,  or  after  our  birth. 
Again,  the  word  idta  seems  to  be  commonly  taken  in  a  very  loose 
sense  by  Locke  and  others  as  standing  for  any  of  our  perceptions,  our 
sensations  and  passions,  as  well  as  our  thoughts.  Now,  in  this 
sense,  I  should  desire  to  know  what  can  be  meant  by  asserting  that 
self-love,  or  resentment  of  injuries,  or  the  passion  between  the  sexes, 
is  not  innate?"— HUME,  Essay  Concerning  tin  Human  Under- 
ttanding. 


r.J  ,  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  341 

*  (/.  288). — The  following  is  Dr.  Chcync's  description  of  Colonel 
Townshend's  case  : — "  fie  told  us  that  he  had  sont  for  us  to  give 
him  some  account  of  an  odd  sensation  he  had  for  some  time  ob- 
served and  felt  in  himself ;  which  was  that,  composing  himself,  he 
could  die  or  expire  when  he  pleased,  and  yet,  by  an  effort,  or  some- 
how, he  could  come  to  life  again,  which,  it  seems,  he  had  sometimes 
tried  before  he  sent  for  us.  We  all  three  felt  his  pulse  :  it  was  dis- 
tinct, though  small  and  thready,  and  his  heart  had  its  usual  beating. 
He  composed  himself  on  his  back,  and  lay  in  a  still  posture  for 
some  time  ;  while  I  held  his  right  hand,  Dr.  Baynard  laid  his  hand 
on  his  heart,  and  Mr.  Skrine  held  a  clean  looking-glass  to  his  mouth. 
I  found  his  pulse  sink  gradually,  until  at  last  I  could  not  feel  any 
by  the  most  exact  and  nice  touch.  Dr.  Baynard  could  not  feel  the 
least  motion  in  his  heart,  nor  Mr.  Skrine  discern  the  least  soil  of 
breath  on  the  bright  mirror  he  held  to  his  mouth.  Then  each  of 
us  by  turn  examined  his  arm,  heart,  and  breath,  but  could  not  by 
the  nicest  scrutiny  discover  the  least  symptom  of  life  in  him.  This 
continued  about  half-an-hour.  As  we  were  going  away  (thinking 
him  dead),  we  observed  some  motion  about  the  body,  and  upon  ex- 
amination found  his  pulse  and  the  motion  of  liis  heart  gradually  re- 
turning; he  began  to  breathe  gently  and  speak  softly."  In  the 
evening  of  that  day  the  colonel  really  died. 

6  (P-  3°4)- — "The  decay  of  sense  in  men  waking  is  not  the  decay 
of  the  motion  made  in  sense,  but  an  obscuring  of  it,  in  such  manner 
as  the  light  of  the  sun  obscureth  the  light  of  the  stars  ;  which  stars 
do  no  less  exercise  their  virtues,  by  which  they  are  visible,  in  the  day 
than  in  the  night.     But  because  among  many  strokes  which  our 
eyes,  ears,  and  other  organs  receive  from  external  bodies,  the  pre- 
dominant only  is  sensible ;    therefore,   the  light  of  the  sun  being 
predominant,  we  are  not  aflfev.ted  with  the  action  of  the  stars." — 
l.ti'iatliant  ch.  vL 

7  (f-  3°7)- — "The  time  taken  up  in  performing  an  idea  is  like- 
wise much  the  same  as  that  taken  up  in  performing  a  muscular 
motion.     A  musician  can  press  the  keys  of  a  harpsichord  with  his 
fingcis  in  the  order  of  a  tune  he  has  been  accustomed  to  play  in  as 
little  lime  as  he  can  run  over  these  notes  in  his  mind.     So  we  many 
times  in  an  hour  cover  our  eyeballs,  without  perceiving  that  we  are 
in  the  dark  ;  hence  the  perception  or  idea  of  light  is  not  changed  for 
that  of  darkness  in  so  small  a  time  as  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  so 
that,  in  this  case,  the  muscular  motion  of  the  eyelid  is  performed 
quicker  than  the  perception  of  light  can  be  changed  for  that  of  dark- 
ness."— Zoonomia,  vol.  i.  p.  24. 

8  (p.  320). — In  the  Union  Medicale  of  July  2ist  and  23rd,  1874, 

16 


342  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Dr.  E.  Mesnet  relates  the  particulars  of  an  interesting  case  of  auto- 
matic mental  action.  His  paper  is  entitled  "  De  I'Automatisme  de 
la  Memoire  et  du  Souvenir  dans  le  Somnambulisme  pathologique," 

A  sergeant  in  the  French  army,  aged  27  years,  was  wounded  at 
the  battle  of  Bazeilles  by  a  bullet,  which  fractured  the  left  parietal 
bone.  He  had  power  enough  to  thrust  his  bayonet  into  the 
Prussian  soldier  who  wounded  him,  but  almost  at  the  same  instant  his 
right  arm,  and  soon  afterwards  his  right  leg,  became  paralysed.  He 
lost  consciousness,  and  only  recovered  it  at  the  end  of  three  weeks, 
when  he  found  himself  in  hospital  at  Mayence.  Right  hemiplegia 
was  then  complete. 

By  the  end  .of  a  year  he  had  regained  the  use  of  his  side,  a  slight 
feebleness  thereof  only  being  left.  Some  three  or  four  months  after 
the  wound,  peculiar  disturbances  of  the  brain  manifested  themselves, 
which  have  recurred  since  periodically.  They  usually  last  from 
fifteen  to  thirty  hours,  the  sound  intervals  between  them  varying 
from  fifteen  to  thirty  days.  These  alternating  phases  of  normal  and 
abnormal  consciousness  have  continued  for  four  years.  In  his  normal 
condition,  the  sergeant  is  intelligent,  and  performs  satisfactorily  the 
duties  of  a  hospital  attendant.  The  transition  to  the  abnormal 
state  is  instantaneous.  There  is  some  uneasiness  or  heaviness  about 
the  forehead,  which  he  compares  with  the  pressure  of  an  iron  band, 
but  there  are  no  convulsions,  nor  is  there  any  cry.  He  becomes 
suddenly  unconscious  of  his  surroundings  and  acts  like  an  automaton. 
His  eyes  are  wide  open,  the  pupils  dilated,  the  forehead  is  contracted, 
there  is  an  incessant  movement  of  the  eyeballs,  and  a  chewing 
motion  of  the  jaws.  In  a  place  to  which  he  is  accustomed,  he  walks 
about  freely  as  usual,  but  if  he  be  put  in  a  place  unknown  to  him, 
or  if  an  obstacle  is  put  in  his  way,  barring  his  passage,  he  stumbles 
gently  against  it,  stops,  feels  it  with  his  hand,  and  then  passes  on 
one  side  of  it.  He  offers  no  resistance  to  being  turned  this  way  or 
that,  but  continues  his  walk  in  the  way  in  which  he  is  directed.  He 
eats,  drinks,  smokes,  walks,  dresses  and  undresses  himself,  and 
goes  to  bed  at  his  usual  hours.  He  eats  voraciously,  and  without 
discernment,  scarcely  chewing  his  food  at  all,  and  devours  all  that 
is  set  before  him  without  showing  any  satiety.  General  sensibility  is 
lost  ;  pins  may  be  run  into  his  body,  or  strong  electric  shocks  sent 
through  it,  without  his  evincing  the  least  pain.  The  hearing  is  com- 
pletely  lost ;  noises  made  close  to  his  ears  do  not  affect  him.  The 
senses  of  taste  and  smell  are  lost ;  he  drinks  indifferently  water, 
Vine,  vinegar,  assafottida,  and  perceives  neither  good  nor  bad  odours. 
The  sense  of  u^ht  is  almost,  but  not  quite,  lost ;  on  some  occasions 
he  appears  to  be  in  some  degree  sensible  to  brilliant  objects,  but  he 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  343 

is  obliged  to  call  the  sense  of  touch  to  his  aid  in  order  to  apprehend 
their  nature,  form,  and  position  ;  they  produce  only  vague  visual  im- 
pressions, which  require  interpretation  into  the  language  of  touch. 
The  sense  of  touch  alone  persists  in  its  integrity  ;  it  seems,  indeed, 
to  be  more  acute  than  normal,  and  to  serve,  almost  exclusively,  to 
maintain  his  relations  with  the  external  world.  When  he  comes  out 
of  the  attack,  he  has  no  remembrance  whatever  of  what  has  hap- 
pened during  it,  and  expresses  the  greatest  surprise  when  told  what 
he  has  done. 

Through  the  tactile  sense,  trains  of  ideas  may  be  aroused  in  his 
mind,  which  he  immediately  carries  into  action.  On  one  occasion, 
when  walking  in  the  garden  under  some  trees,  he  dropped  his  cane, 
which  was  picked  up  and  put  into  his  hand.  He  felt  it,  passing  his 
hand  several  times  over  the  curved  handle,  became  attentive, 
seemed  to  listen,  and  suddenly  cried  out,  "Henri,"  and  a  little 
while  afterwards,  "  There  they  are,  at  least  twenty  of  them ;  we 
shall  get  the  better  of  them  !  "  He  then  put  his  hand  behind  hi , 
back,  a  sif  to  get  a  cartridge,  went  through  the  movements  of  load- 
ing his  musket,  threw  himself  full  length  upon  the  grass,  and  cor»  • 
cealing  his  head  behind  a  tree,  after  the  manner  of  a  sharp-shooter, 
followed,  with  his  cane  to  his  shoulder,  all  the  movements  of  the 
enemy  whom  he  seemed  to  see.  This  performance,  provoked  in  the 
same  way,  was  repeated  on  several  occasions.  It  was  probably  the 
reproduction  of  an  incident  in  the  campaign  in  which  he  was 
wounded.  "  I  have  found,"  says  Dr.  Mesnet,  "  that  the  same 
scene  is  reproduced  when  the  patient  is  placed  in  the  same  conditions. 
It  has  thus  been  possible  for  me  to  direct  the  activity  of  my  patient 
in  accordance  with  a  train  of  ideas  which  I  could  call  up  by  playing 
upon  his  tactile  sensibility  at  a  time  when  none  of  his  other  senses 
afforded  me  any  communication  with  him." 

All  the  actions  of  the  sergeant,  when  in  his  abnormal  state,  are 
either  repetitions  of  what  he  does  every  day,  or  they  are  excited  by 
the  impressions  which  objects  make  upon  his  tactile  sense.  Arriving 
once  at  the  end  of  a  corridor  where  there  was  a  locked  door,  he 
passed  his  hands  over  the  door,  found  the  handle,  took  hold  of  it 
and  tried  to  open  the  door.  Failing  in  this,  he  searched  for  the 
keyhole,  but  there  was  no  key  there ;  thereupon  he  passed  his 
fingers  over  the  screws  of  the  lock,  and  endeavoured  to  turn  them, 
with  the  evident  purpose  of  removing  the  lock.  Just  as  he  wxj 
about  to  turn  away  from  the  door,  Dr.  Mesnet  held  up  before  his 
eyes  a  bunch  of  seven  or  eight  keys ;  he  did  not  see  them  ;  they 
were  jingled  loudly  close  to  his  ears,  but  he  took  no  notice  of  them  ; 
they  were  then  put  into  his  hand,  \\  hen  he  immediately  took  hold  of 


344  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

them,  and  tried  one  key  after  another  in  the  keyhole  without  finding 
one  lhat  would  fit  it. 

Leaving  the  place,  he  went  into  one  of  the  wards,  taking  on  his 
way  various  articles  with  which  he  filled  his  pockets,  and  at  length 
came  to  a  little  table  which  was  used  for  making  the  records  of  the 
ward.  He  passed  his  hands  over  the  table,  but  there  was  nothing 
on  it ;  however,  he  touched  the  handle  of  a  drawer,  which  he 
opened,  taking  out  of  it  a  pen,  several  sheets  of  paper  and  an  ink- 
stand. The  pen  had  plainly  suggested  the  idea  of  writing,  for  he 
sat  down,  dipped  it  in  the  ink  and  began  to  write  a  letter,  in  which 
he  recommended  himself  to  his  commanding  officer  for  the  military 
medal  on  account  of  his  good  conduct  and  his  bravery.  There  were 
many  mistakes  in  the  letter,  but  they  were  exactly  the  same  mistakes 
in  expression  and  orthography  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  making 
when  in  his  normal  state.  From  the  ease  with  which  he  traced  the 
letters,  and  followed  the  lines  of  the  paper,  it  was  evident  that  his 
sense  of  sight  was  in  action,  but  this  was  placed  beyond  doubt  by 
the  interposition  of  a  thick  screen  between  his  eyes  and  his  hand  ; 
he  continued  to  write  a  few  words  in  a  confused  and  almost  illegible 
manner,  and  then  stopped  without  manifesting  any  impatience  or 
discontent.  When  the  screen  was  withdrawn,  he  finished  the  un- 
completed line  and  began  another.  Another  experiment  was  made  : 
water  was  substituted  for  the  ink.  When  he  found  that  no  letters 
were  visible,  he  stopped,  tried  the  tip  of  his  pen,  nibbed  it  on  his 
coat  sleeve,  and  then  began  again  to  write  with  the  same  results.  On 
one  occasion  he  had  taken  several  sheets  of  paper  to  write  upon,  and 
while  he  was  writing  on  the  topmost  sheet  it  was  withdrawn  quickly. 
He  continued  to  write  upon  the  second  sheet  as  if  nothing  had 
happened,  completing  his  sentence  without  interruption,  and  with- 
out any  other  expression  than  a  slight  movement  of  surprise.  When 
he  had  written  ten  words  on  the  second  sheet,  it  was  removed  as 
rapidly  as  the  first ;  he  finished  on  the  third  sheet  the  line  which  he 
had  begun  on  the  second,  continuing  it  from  the  exact  point  where 
his  pen  was  when  the  sheet  was  removed.  The  same  thing  was 
repeated  with  the  third  and  fourth  sheets,  and  he  finished  his  letter 
at  last  on  the  fifth  sheet,  which  contained  his  signature  only.  He 
then  turned  his  eyes  towards  the  top  of  this  sheet,  and  seemed  to 
read  from  the  top  what  he  had  written,  a  movement  of  the  lips 
accompanying  each  word  ;  moreover,  he  made  several  corrections  on 
the  blank  pa^e,  putting  here  a  comma,  there  an  e,  and  at  another 
place  a  /  ;  and  each  of  these  corrections  corresponded  with  the  posi- 
tion of  the  words  that  required  correction  on  the  sheets  which  had 
been  withdrawn.  Dr.  Me  net  concludes  from  these  experiments  that 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  $45 

sight  really  existed,  but  that  it  was  only  roused  at  the  instance  of 
touch,  and  exercised  only  upon  those  objects  with  which  he  was  in 
relation  through  touch.  After  he  had  finished  his  letter  the  sergeant 
put  up,  walked  down  to  the  garden,  rolled  a  cigarette  for  himself, 
sought  for  his  match-box,  lighted  his  cigarette  and  smoked  it. 
When  the  lighted  match  fell  upon  the  ground,  he  extinguished  it  by 
putting  his  foot  upon  it.  When  the  cigarette  was  finished  he  began 
to  prepare  another,  but  his  tobacco  pouch  was  taken  away,  and  he 
sought  in  vain  for  it  in  all  his  pockets.  It  was  offered  to  him,  but 
he  did  not  perceive  it ;  it  was  held  up  before  his  eyes,  but  he  took 
no  notice  of  it ;  it  was  thrust  under  his  nose,  but  he  did  not  smell 
it ;  when,  however,  it  was  put  into  his  hand  he  took  it,  completed 
his. cigarette  directly  and  struck  a  match  to  light  it.  This  match 
was  purposely  blown  out,  and  another  lighted  one  was  offered  to 
him,  but  he  did  not  perceive  it ;  even  when  it  was  brought  so  close 
to  his  eyes  as  to  singe  a  few  eyelashes  he  did  not  notice  it,  neither 
did  he  blink.  When  the  match  was  applied  to  the  cigarette  he  took 
no  notice,  and  made  no  attempt  to  smoke.  Dr.  Mesnet  repeated 
this  experiment  on  several  occasions,  and  always  obtained  the  same 
results.  The  sergeant  saw  his  own  match,  but  saw  not  the  match 
which  Dr.  Mesnet  offered  to  him.  There  was  no  contraction  of  the 
pupil  when  the  lighted  match  was  brought  close  to  the  eye.  He 
had  once  been  employed  as  a  singer  at  a  cafe.  In  one  of  his 
abnormal  states,  he  was  observed  to  hum  some  airs  which  seemed 
familiar  to  him,  after  which  he  went  to  his  room,  took  from  a 
shelf  a  comb  and  looking  glass,  combed  his  hair,  brushed  his  beard, 
adjusted  his  collar,  and  attended  carefully  to  his  toilet.  When  the 
glass  was  turned  round,  so  that  he  only  saw  the  back  of  it,  he 
went  on  as  if  he  still  saw  himself  in  it.  On  his  bed  there  were 
several  numbers  of  a  periodical  romance ;  these  he  turned  rapidly 
over,  apparently  not  finding  what  he  wanted.  Dr.  Mesnet  took 
one  of  these  numbers,  rolled  it  up  so  as  to  resemble  a  roll  of  music 
and  put  it  in  his  hand,  when  he  seemed  satisfied,  descended  the 
stairs,  and  walked  across  the  court  of  the  hospital  towards  the  gate. 
He  was  turned  round,  when  he  started  off  in  the  new  direction  given 
to  him,  entering  the  lodge  of  the  door-keeper,  which  opened  into 
the  halL  At  this  moment  the  sun  shone  brightly  through  a  window 
in  the  lodge,  and  the  bright  light  evidently  suggested  the  footlights 
of  the  stage,  for  he  placed  himself  before  it,  opened  the  roll  of 
paper,  and  sang  a  patriotic  ballad  in  an  excellent  manner.  When 
he  had  finished  this  he  sang  a  second  and  a  third,  after  which  he 
took  out  his  handkerchief  to  wipe  his  face.  A  wine  glass  con- 
taining a  strong  mixture  of  vinegar  and  water  was  offered  to  him, 


346  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

of  which  he  took  no  notice,  but  when  it  was  put  into  his  hand  he 
drank  it  off  without  exhibiting  any  sign  of  an  unpleasant  sensation. 
Dr.  Mesnet  propounds  the  question  whether  in  this  perfect  render- 
ing of  the  three  ballads  he  heard  his  own  voice,  or  whether  the  sing- 
ing was  purely  as  automatic  as  his  other  actions.  The  attack  came 
to  an  end  before  they  could  make  an  experiment  to  test  this  question. 
When  the  sergeant  is  in  his  abnormal  state,  it  is  impossible  to 
awaken  him  to  his  normal  state,  whatever  tffjrts  be  made.  No 
effect  is  produced  either  by  stimulation  or  by  strong  electrical  cur- 
rents. On  one  occasion  he  was  seized  suddenly  by  the  shoulders 
and  thrown  violently  upon  the  grass  ;  he  manifested  no  emotion, 
but,  cf.er  feeling  the  turf  with  his  hands,  raised  himself  again,  calm 
and  impassive. 

A  remarkable  f  a  xire  in  the  case  is  that  the  sergeant  becomes  a 
veritable  kleptomaniac  during  the  attacks.  He  purloins  everything 
that  he  can  lay  his  hands  on,  and  conceals  what  he  takes  under  the 
quilt,  the  mattress,  or  elsewhere.  This  tendency  to  trke  and  hide 
has  shown  itself  in  each  attack.  He  is  content  v  i  h  the  most 
trifling  articles,  and  if  he  finds  nothing  belonging  to  some  one 
else  to  steal,  he  hides,  with  all  the  appearance  of  secresy,  although 
surrounded  at  the  time  by  persons  observing  him,  various  things  be- 
longing to  himself,  such  as  his  knife,  watch,  pocket-book.  His 
other  actions  during  an  attack  are  repetitions  of  his  former  habits ; 
these  acts  of  stealing  are  not  so. 

If  I  understand  Dr.  Mesnet  correctly,  he  is  acc,u  \inted  with 
another  individual  who  contrives  means  for  committing  suicide  when 
he  is  in  an  abnormal  somnambulistic  state.  "  I  have  been  pre- 
sent," he  says,  "at  two  attempts  at  suicide,  one  by  poisoning, 
the  other  by  hanging,  which  I  have  allowed  to  proceed  to  the 
extreme  limit  of  an  experiment,  having  cut  the  cord  at  the  moment 
of  asphyxia."  He  surmises  that  another  person  might  in  the  same 
way  perpetrate  homicide  or  become  an  incendiary,  not  knowing 
what  he  was  doing  at  the  time,  and  not  remembering,  after  the  attack 
had  passed  off,  what  he  had  done. 

The  resemblance  between  the  sergeant's  abnormal  states  and  those 
transitory  attacks  of  epileptic  uncf  ns  :iousness  during  which  the 
patient,  unconscious  of  surrounding  objects,  continues  automatically 
the  act  which  he  was  engaged  in  at  th.»  t  ma  of  his  seizure,  will  be 
apparent  In  this  relation  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Dr.  Darwin, 
the  distinguished  author  of  the  Zoono»iia,  called  attention  long  ago 
to  the  affinity  between  epilepsy  and  somnambulism. 

9  (P"  337)- — "*t  will  easily  appear  from  the  observations  here 
made  upon  words,  and  the  associations  which  adhere  to  them,  that 


v.]  HEMISPHERICAL  GANGLIA.  347 

the  languages  of  different  ages  and  nations  must  bear  a  general  re- 
semblance to  each  other,  and  yet  have  considerable  particular  differ- 
ences ;  whence  any  one  may  be  translated  into  any  other,  so  as  to 
convey  the  same  ideas  in  general,  and  yet  not  with  perfect  precision 
and  exactness.  They  must  resemble  one  another  because  the 
phenomena  of  nature,  which  they  are  all  intended  to  express,  and 
the  uses  and  exigencies  of  human  life,  to  which  they  minister,  have 
a  general  resemb'ance.  But  then,  as  the  bodily  make  and  genius 
of  each  people,  the  air,  soil,  and  climate,  commerce,  arts,  science, 
religion,  &c.,  make  considerable  differences  in  different  ages  and 
nations,  it  is  natural  to  expect  that  the  languages  should  have  pro- 
portionable differences  in  respect  of  each  other." — HARTLEY'S 
Theory  of  The  Human  Mind,  by  Dr.  Priestley. 

"  Wherefore,  as  men  owe  all  their  true  ratiocination  to  the  right 
understanding  of  speech,  so  also  they  owe  their  errors  to  the 
misunderstanding  of  the  same ;  and  as  all  the  ornaments  of  phi- 
losophy proceed  only  from  men,  so  from  man  also  is  derived  the 
ugly  absurdity  of  false  opinions.  For  speech  has  something  in  it 
like  to  a  spider's  web  (as  it  was  said  of  old  of  Solon's  laws),  for 
by  contexture  of  words  tender  and  delicate  wits  are  ensnared  and 
stopped ;  but  strong  wits  break  easily  through  them." — HOBBES, 
voL  L  p.  36. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND. 

MAN  is  patient  and  agent;  he  suffers  certain  passions 
and  does  certain  actions.  A  calm  deliberation  involves 
an  equilibrium  between  suffering  and  doing,  between  the 
individual  and  his  surroundings ;  but  in  so  far  as  an  idea 
is  attended  with  some  feeling,  whether  of  pleasure  or  of 
pain,  or  of  a  more  special  character,  it  is  to  that  extent 
emotional ;  and  if  the  feeling  preponderate,  the  idea  is 
obscured  and  the  state  of  mind  is  then  called  an  emotion 
or  a  passion.  The  definite  form  of  the  idea  in  the 
material  substratum  is  obscured  or  partially  lost  in  the 
agitation  or  commotion  of  the  nerve  elements.  Every 
definite  emotion  involves  the  presence  of  a  more  or  less 
clear  idea  of  object  or  event,  either  presentative  or  repre- 
sentative, wherefore  it  cannot  be  separated  from  the  idea; 
and  the  idea,  being  rooted  in  sensation,  always  contains 
some  feeling,  even  if  only  a  feeling  that  it  is  agreeable  or 
disagreeable.  In  the  simplest  mental  experience  there  is 
a  subjective  as  well  as  an  objective  element ;  for  in  the 
earliest  perception  there  is  feeling.  Strictly  speaking,  all 
conscious  psychical  states  are,  at  first,  feelings ;  but,  after 
having  been  experienced  several  times,  they  are  ade- 
quately and  definitely  organized,  and  become  almost  auto- 
matic or  indifferent  under  ordinary  circumstances.  So 
long  as  the  ideas  or  mental  states  are  not  adequately  or- 
ganized in  correspondence  with  the  individual's  external 


CH.VI.]  THE  EMOTIONS  OK  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.  349 

relations,  more  or  less  feeling  will  attend  their  excita- 
tion :  they  will,  in  fact,  be  more  or  less  emotional.  When 
the  equilibrium  between  the  subjective  and  objective  is 
duly  established,  there  is  no  passion  and  there  is  but 
little  emotion.(')  A  person  who  is  governei  by  his  feel- 
ings is  much  like  one  who  should  live  in  the  stage  of 
simple  sensation  without  going  on  to  the  higher  stage 
of  perception ;  and  as  the  stronger  the  sensation  the  less 
exact  and  complete  is  the  perception,  so  the  more  active 
the  emotion  the  less  adequate  is  the  cognition. 

It  has  been  the  custom  to  write  of  the  phenomena  of 
the  human  mind  as  if  they  stood  quite  apart  from  other 
natural  phenomena,  belonged  to  an  order  of  their  own, 
and  did  not  conform  to  the  order  of  nature ;  as  if  man 
were  a  law  unto  himself,  exercising  an  authority  indepen- 
dent of  nature,  whose  function  was  to  control,  not  to 
conform  to,  its  order.  But  he  has  no  such  independent 
authority ;  he  controls  only  by  conforming,  conquers  only 
by  obeying  ;  he  is  controlled  in  spite  of  himself  if  he 
does  not  conform,  yielding  painfully  through  suffering  an 
obedience  which  he  might  yield  cheerfully  through  wise 
action.  Emotions,  good  or  bad,  are  physical  phenomena 
which  have  their  roots  in  the  organic  life,  conform  to 
natural  laws  in  their  origin,  nature  and  expression,  and 
must  be  studied  and  discussed  like  other  natural  pheno- 
mena. With  a  boldness  and  thoroughness  which  horrified 
metaphysicians,  Spinoza  treated  of  human  actions,  appe- 
tites and  emotions  after  the  geometrical  method,  precisely 
as  if  they  were  questions  of  lines,  planes  and  solids. 
While  recognising  the  service  which  he  did  to  philosophy 
by  insisting  upon  their  being  put  in  the  same  order  with 
other  natural  phenomena  and  studied  by  the  same  methods, 
one  can  easily  see  now  that  the  exact  method  was  not 
suited  to  such  complex  phenomena,  and  that  the  best 
hope  of  fruitful  results  lies  in  the  careful  adoption  of  the 
Inductive  method  of  inquiry. 


350  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Emotions  betray  their  physical  nature  by  their  name, 
which  has  been  given  them  because  of  their  being  move- 
ments of  mind  and  body;  the  name  is  really  an  induction 
embodying  the  experience  of  mankind,  the  old  name  of 
commotions  which  they  had  evincing  this  still  more  plainly. 
They  act  more  powerfully  upon  the  organism  than  ideas, 
because  they  represent  a  more  violent  internal  movement, 
and  because  the  whole  system  of  the  organic  life  is  more 
deeply  implicated  in  their  origin,  nature  and  expression. 
To  all  appearances  a  violent  emotion  may  act  sometimes 
in  the  same  way  as  a  strong  physical  shock  to  the  ner- 
vous system,  for  it  may  produce  in  some  instances  con- 
vulsions, fainting,  loss  of  sensation,  paralysis  of  move- 
ment, deafness;  exactly  the  effects  which  a  strong  electric 
shock  may  produce.  We  have  not  then  to  do  with 
mysterious  self-determining  agencies  :  we  have  to  do  with 
phenomena  which,  complex  as  they  unquestionably  are, 
will  eventually  receive  a  complete  analysis. 

It  has  been  sufficiently  evident,  up  to  the  present 
point,  that  the  condition  of  the  nervous  centres  is  of  the 
greatest  consequence  in  respect  of  the  formation  of  the 
so-called  mental  faculties,  and  of  the  manifestation  of 
their  functions ;  it  will  now  be  seen  that  this  condition  is 
of  still  more  manifest  importance  in  regard  to  the  pheno- 
mena of  the  emotions.  Every  one's  experience  teaches 
him  that  an  idea  which  is  at  one  time  indifferent,  being 
accompanied  by  no  feeling  of  pleasure  or  discomfort, 
may,  at  another  time,  be  attended  by  some  feeling  of 
discomfort,  or  become  positively  painful.  And  it  requires 
no  very  attentive  observation  of  men  to  discover  that 
different  persons  are  very  differently  affected  by  one  and 
the  same  object,  and  often  pass  very  different  judgments 
upon  it  in  consequence.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that 
we  are  in  the  constant  habit  of  distinguishing  men  by  the 
difference  of  their  emotional  disposition  or  of  the  temper 
of  their  minds,  and  of  speaking  accordingly  of  one  man 


VI.]     THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     35 1 

as  timid,  of  another  as  courageous,  of  one  as  irritable 
and  quick-tempered,  of  another  as  even-tempered  and 
placid.  One  of  the  earliest  symptoms  of  an  oncoming 
insanity,  and  one  that  is  almost  universally  present  as  the 
expression  of  a  commencing  deterioration,  howsoever 
caused,  of  the  nervous  centres,  is  an  emotional  disturb- 
ance, upon  which  follows  more  or  less  perversion  of 
judgment.  It  is  feeling  or  the  affective  life  that  reveals 
the  essential  nature  of  the  man;  it  lies  deeper  in  his 
nature  than  intellect,  as  the  organic  life  lies  beneath  ani- 
mal life ;  it  expresses  the  fundamental  tone  of  his  nerve 
element,  which  again  is  the  result  of  its  actual  constitu- 
tion or  composition,  inherited  and  acquired. 

The  first  occurring  observation  which,  following 
Spinoza,  Unzer,  and  Muller,  I  shall  make,  is,  that  an  idea 
which  is  favourable  to  the  impulses  or  strivings  of  the 
individual,  to  self-expansion,  is  accompanied  by  a  feeling 
of  more  or  less  pleasure ;  and  that  an  idea  which  be- 
tokens individual  restriction,  being  opposed  to  the  expan- 
sion of  self,  is  attended  with  a  feeling  of  more  or  less 
discomfort  or  pain.  As  the  organic  germ  does,  under 
circumstances  favourable  to  its  inherent  developmental 
impulse,  incorporate  matter  from  without,  exhibiting  its 
gratification  by  its  growth,  and,  under  unfavourable  con- 
ditions, does  not  assimilate,  but  manifests  its  suffering  or 
passion  by  its  decay  ;  so  likewise  the  ganglionic  nerve- 
cells  of  the  hemispheres  attest  by  a  pleasant  emotion  the 
furtherance  of  their  development,  and  declare  by  a  pain- 
ful feeling  of  discomfort  the  restriction  or  injury  which 
they  suffer  from  an  unfavourable  stimulus. 

It  is  the  fundamental  nature  of  organic  element,  whether 
of  high  or  low  degree,  to  feel  as  agreeable  and  therefore  to 
ensue  all  which  favours  its  preservation  and  increase ;  to 
feel  as  disagreeable,  and  therefore  to  eschew,  all  which 
hinders  or  prevents  its  activity  and  development.  How  in- 
deed can  that  which  is  hurtful  agree  with  it,  and  be  there- 


352  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  M1XD.  [CHAP. 

fore  agreeable  1  Even  in  the  earliest  sensation,  the  exist- 
ence of  pain  or  pleasure  is  a  sort  of  obscure  judgment  on 
its  advantage  or  disadvantage  to  the  personality  or  self — a 
judgment  in  which,  as  Herbart  has  remarked,  the  subject 
cannot  yet  be  separated  from  the  predicate  that  expresses 
praise  or  blame.*  Among  so  many  dangers,  then,  "  to  have 
a  care  of  one's  self  is,"  in  the  words  of  Hobbcs,  "  so  far 
from  being  a  matter  scornfully  to  be  looked  at,  that  one 
has  neither  the  power  nor  wish  to  have  done  otherwise. 
For  every  man  is  desirous  of  what  is  good  for  him,  and 
shuns  what  is  evil,  but  chiefly  the  chiefest  of  natural 
evils,  which  is  death ;  and  this  he  doth  by  a  certain  im- 
pulsion of  nature,  no  less  than  that  whereby  a  stone 
moves  downwards."  (*)  And  when  he  projects  his  ima- 
gination beyond  the  grave,  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  same 
impulsion  of  nature  operating  in  relation  to  the  future 
that  he  aspires  to  attain  the  joys  of  heaven  and  hopes 
to  elude  the  torments  of  hell.  All  the  component  parts  of 
man,  as  well  as  the  complex  whole  which  they  constitute, 
seek  for  a  larger  activity  and  increased  vitality ;  whatever 
contributes  to  this  increase  is  the  proper  good  of  each 
part ;  but  it  will  be  easily  seen  that  the  good  of  the  whole, 
demanding  the  due  subordination  and  co-ordination  of 
parts,  must  often  necessitate  restraint  on  the  undue 
development  of  the  parts,  just  as  the  welfare  of  the 
social  organism  plainly  demands  the  subordination  of  in- 
dividual impulses.  Children  and  savages  best  exhibit 
in  a  naked  simplicity  the  different  passions  which  result 
from  the  affection  of  self  by  what,  when  painful,  is 
deemed  an  ill ;  when  pleasurable,  a  good. 

It  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  stimulus  which 
in  moderation  gives  rise  to  a  pleasant  idea,  or  rather 
emotion,  will,  when  too  prolonged  or  too  powerful,  pro- 

*  "  Ein  Urtheil,  in  dem  nur  das  Vorgestellte  sich  noch  nicht 
von  dem  Predicate,  das  Bcifall  oder  Tadel  ausdriickt,  sondera 
lasst." — HERBART 


n.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     353 

duce  discomfort  or  pain,  and  consequent  efforts  to  escape 
from  it.  There  is  then  a  desire  to  shun  the  stimulus,  like 
as  one  altogether  noxious  is  shunned  ;  the  desire  becom- 
ing the  motive  or  spring  of  action.  The  impulse  in  such 
case  is  described  as  desire,  because  there  is  consciousness 
of  it ;  but  it  is  without  doubt  the  equivalent  in  a  higher 
kind  of  tissue  of  that  effort  which  the  lowest  animal 
organism  exhibits,  without  consciousness,  to  get  away 
from  an  injurious  stimulus.  In  both  instances  there  is, 
in  truth,  the  display  of  the  so-called  self-conservative 
impulse  which  is  immanent  in  all  living  matter — an 
impulse  or  instinct,  which,  whatever  deeper  facts  of 
intimate  composition  may  be  connoted  by  it,  is  the 
essential  condition  of  the  continued  existence  of  organic 
element  Such  reaction  of  organic  element  is  as  natural 
and  necessary  as  the  reaction  of  any  chemical  compound, 
because  as  much  the  consequence  of  the  properties  of 
matter  thus  organically  combined. 

When  the  stimulus  to  a  hemispherical  nerve-cell  is  not 
in  sufficient  force  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  latter, — 
when,  in  fact,  it  is  inadequate,  then  there  is  the  mani- 
festation of  an  affinity  or  attraction  by  the  nervous 
centre,  an  outward  impulse,  appetence,  or  striving,  which, 
again,  as  it  occurs  in  consciousness,  is  revealed  to  us  as 
desire,  craving,  instinct,  or  appetite.  There  is  no  differ- 
ence, indeed,  as  Spinoza  observes,  between  appetite  and 
desire,  except  in  so  far  as  the  latter  implies  conscious- 
ness ;  desire  is  self-conscious  appetite.  (3)  Because  we 
have  an  appetite  or  desire  for  something,  therefore  we 
ju'dge  it  to  be  good  :  it  certainly  is  not  because  a  thing  is 
judged  to  be  good  that  \ve  have  an  appetite  or  desire  for 
it.  Here,  again,  there  is  an  exact  correspondence  with 
that  attraction,  impulse,  or  striving  of  organic  element 
towards  a  favourable  stimulus  manifested  throughout 
nature,  the  necessary  correlate  of  which  is  a  repulsion 
of  what  is  unfavourable. 


354  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Because  the  affinity  is  exhibited  in  vital  structure,  we  are 
prone,  when  observing  it,  to  transfer  our  own  states  of  con- 
sciousness to  the  organic  element,  and,  therefore,  to  repre- 
sent it  on  all  occasions  as  striving,  by  means  of  a  self-con- 
servative impulse  or  instinct,  for  the  stimulus  favourable 
to  its  growth.    But  the  attraction  is  no  less  a  physical  ne- 
cessity than  the  attraction  of  an  acid  for  an  alkali,  of  the 
needle  to  the  pole,  or  of  positive  for  negative  electricity ; 
if  there  were  no  stimulus,  there  would  be  no  reaction 
on  the  part  of  the  organic  element  j  if  the  stimulus  were 
in  injurious  excess,  or  otherwise  unfavourable,  there  must 
be  disturbance  of  the  statical  equilibrium  and  a  reaction 
of  repulsion;  and  when  the  stimulus  is  favourable  but 
deficient,  the  reaction  is  evinced  in  an  attraction  or  affinity 
for  an  additional  amount,  like  as  when  a  non-neutralized 
acid  takes  up  more  alkali  or  as  unsatisfied  appetite  craves 
more  nutriment     Now,  it  is  most  important  that  we  do 
not  allow  the  presence  of  consciousness  to  mislead  us 
as  to  what  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  things  in  the 
ganglionic  cells  of  the  brain.    Here,  as  elsewhere,  healthy 
organic  element  manifests    its  fundamental  properties, 
pursuing  the  good,  eschewing  the  ill ;  and  consciousness 
is  something  superadded  which  nowise  either  occasions 
or  abolishes  them.     The  striving  after  a  pleasing  im- 
pression, or  the  effort  to  avoid  a  painful  one,  is  at  bottom 
a  physical  consequence  of  the  nature  of  the  ganglionic 
cell  in  its  relation  to  a  certain  stimulus ;  and  the  reaction 
or  desire  becomes  the  motive  of  a  general  action  on  the 
part  of  the  individual  for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  a  want 
or  of  shunning  an  ill.     The  care  of  himself  no  man  in 
good  health  has  the  power  to   neglect.     To  cease  to 
strive  is  to  begin  to  die,  physically,  morally,  and  intel- 
lectually. 

It  is  plain  then,  not  only  how  desires  become  the 
motives  of  action,  but  how  they  are  gradually  evolved 
into  their  complete  form  out  of  the  unconscious  organic 


VI.  J      THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     355 

appetites.  The  appetites  for  food  and  drink  and  the 
sexual  appetite  are  the  strongest  motives  of  action,  as 
they  are  the  fundamental  and  urgent  appetites  of  the 
organic  being.  In  the  desire  of  the  adult  there  is  neces- 
sarily some  sort  of  conception  of  what  is  desired,  though  it 
is  not  a  very  definite  one  at  times  ;  but  in  the  child,  as  in 
the  idiot,  we  frequently  witness  a  vague  restlessness 
evincing  an  undefined  want  of,  or  desire  for,  something 
of  which  itself  is  unconscious,  but  which,  when  obtained, 
presently  produces  quiet  and  satisfaction :  the  organic 
life  speaks  out  with  an  as  yet  inarticulate  utterance.  Most 
striking  and  instructive  is  that  example  of  the  evolution 
of  organic  life  into  consciousness  which  is  observed  at 
the  time  of  puberty,  when  new  organs  come  into  action 
and  exert  their  physiological  influence  upon  the  brain ; 
vague  and  ill-understood  desires  give  rise  to  obscure 
impulses  that  have  no  defined  aim,  and  produce  a  rest- 
lessness which,  when  misapplied,  is  often  mischievous : 
the  amorous  appetite  thus  first  declares  its  existence. 
But  to  prove  how  clearly  antecedent  to  individual  experi- 
ence it  is,  and  how  little  it  is  indebted  to  the  conscious- 
ness which  is  a  natural  subsequent  development,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  reflect  that  even  in  man  the  desire 
sometimes  attains  to  a  knowledge  of  its  aim,  and  to  a 
sort  of  satisfaction,  in  dreams  before  it  does  so  in  real 
life.  The  same  thing  is  exemplified  in  a  forcible  and 
painful  way  by  the  lascivious  features  of  certain  forms  of 
insanity  in  young  women  who,  of  perfectly  chaste  and 
modest  life,  then  evince  by  speech,  gesture  and  conduct 
a  knowledge  of  means  which  it  is  impossible  they  could 
ever  have  acquired  by  observation  or  experience.  The 
most  chaste  young  man  and  maiden  do  not  require  to  be 
taught  how  they  shall  gratify  the  passion  which  arises  in 
their  minds  in  consequence  of  the  physiological  changes 
which  take  place  at  a  certain  period  of  their  growth. 
And  yet  if  one  were  to  consider  the  process  of  gratifica- 


J56  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

tion  as  a  thing  happening  for  the  first  time,  what  an  ex- 
traordinary and  ludicrous  thing  it  would  appear  that  it 
should  enter  into  the  minds  of  two  persons  to  make  such 
use  of  their  bodies  in  obedience  to  a  blind  desire. 

These  simple  reflections  might  of  themselves  suffice 
to  teach  psychologists,  if  they  would  condescend  to 
them,  how  far  more  fundamental  than  any  conscious 
mental  state  is  the  unconscious  mental  or  cerebral  life. 
Given  an  ill-constituted  or  imperfectly-developed  brain 
at  the  time  when  the  sexual  appetite  makes  its  appear- 
ance, and  what  is  the  result?  None  other  than  that 
which  happens  with  the  lower  animal,  where  love  is 
naked  lust,  and  the  sight  of  the  female  excites  a  desire 
that  immediately  issues  in  uncontrollable  efforts  for  its 
gratification.  Given,  on  the  other  hand,  a  well-con- 
stituted and  naturally-developed  brain,  the  sexual 
desire  undergoes  a  complex  development  in  conscious- 
ness :  its  coarse  energy  undergoes  refinement  through 
the  manifold  interlacing  plexuses  of  the  ideational  organ- 
isation, and  from  its  basis  are  evolved  all  those  delicate, 
exalted  and  beautiful  feelings  of  love  that  constitute  the 
store  of  the  poet,  and  play  so  great  a  part  in  human 
happiness  and  in  human  sorrow.  What,  however,  is 
true  of  these  particular  desires  is  true  of  all  our  desires  : 
it  may  be  fitly  said,  with  Bacon,  "  that  the  mind  in  its 
own  nature  would  be  temperate  and  staid,  if  the  affec- 
tions, as  winds,  did  not  put  it  in  tumult  and  perturba- 
tion;"  or,  with  Novalis,  that  "life  is  a  feverish  activity 
excited  by  passion." 

When  the  circumstances  are  exactly  adapted  to  the 
capacity  of  the  organic  element,  the  stimulus  exactly  pro- 
portionate to  the  need,  then  are  the  conditions  most 
favourable  to  the  development  of  the  latter  ;  and  a  steady 
growth  of  it  fails  not  to  testify  to  the  complete  harmony 
of  the  relations.  Or,  adopting  the  language  proper  in 
such  case  to  the  highest  relations  of  man,  there  is  an 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     357 

equilibrium  between  the  subjective  and  the  objective, 
and  no  passion  :  there  is  satisfaction  or  indifference  on 
the  part  of  the  subject^  which  has  neither  a  painful  feeling 
with  consequent  desire  to  avoid  a  suffering,  nor  a  feeling 
of  insufficient  satisfaction  with  consequent  desire  to  in- 
crease or  continue  an  enjoyment.  The  conception  of 
the  qualities  of  the  object  is  purer  and  clearer,  and  a 
steady  assimilation,  promoting  the  evolution  of  idea,  goes 
favourably  on.  As  there  is  no  outward  striving  or  craving 
in  such  case,  the  energy  of  the  response  to  the  stimulus 
is  expended  in  the  growth  of  the  idea  and  in  the  reaction 
of  it  upon  other  ideas, — in  other  words,  in  intellectual 
development  Conception  and  desire,  therefore,  like 
perception  and  sensation,  stand  in  a  sort  of  opposition  to 
one  anotlver,  although  in  every  mental  act  they  co-exist 
in  greater  or  less  relative  degree ;  in  every  conception 
there  is,  or  has  once  been,  as  previously  said,  some  feel- 
ing; and,  again,  in  every  distinct  desire  there  is  a  conception 
of  something  desired.  But  the  opposition  between  them 
is  in  reality  a  matter  of  the  degree  of  formation  of  the 
idea  or  conception  ;  for,  whatever  its  nature,  there  is 
always  more  or  less  feeling  with  it  when  first  experienced, 
which,  however,  disappears  in  proportion  as  it  becomes 
definitely  organised ;  and  even  though  some  little  feeling 
or  desire  remains  connected  with  the  idea,  it  may  often 
remain  in  consciousness,  or  only  modify  reflection,  not 
being  of  sufficient  degree  to  pass  into  outward  mani- 
festation. 

May  we  not  then  justly  affirm,  as  we  clearly  perceive, 
that  the  intellectual  life  does  not  supply  the  motive 
or  impulse  to  action  ;  that  the  understanding  or  reason 
is  not  the  cause  of  our  outward  actions,  but  that  the 
desires  are?  Our  most  effective  energies  spring  from 
our  most  urgent  needs.  A  strong  desire  or  longing  for 
a  certain  object  in  life  often  brings  its  own  accomplish- 
ment. The  desire  is  the  fundamental  expression  of  the 


358  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

individual's  character,  the  manifestation  of  the  essential 
affinities  of  his  nature  ;  accordingly  he  strives  with  all  his 
might  to  attain  unto  the  aim  which  be  sets  before  himself, 
attracts  to  himself  those  influences  which,  coalescing  with 
and  strengthening  his  desire,  augment  its  ascendency,  and 
probably  succeeds  either  in  a  direct  or  a  circuitous  way. 
Thus  it  is  that  aspirations  are  often  prophecies,  the  har- 
bingers of  what  a  man  shall  be  in  a  condition  to  perform. 
Men  of  great  reasoning  powers,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
notoriously  oftentimes  incapacitated  thereby  from  ener- 
getic action ;  they  balance  reasons  so  nicely  that  no  one  of 
them  outweighs  another,  think  so  precisely  over  the  event 
that  they  can  come  to  no  decision :  with  them,  as  with 
Hamlet,  meditation  paralyses  action.  From  want  of 
some  cogent  feeling  impelling  them  to  carry  reflection 
into  action,  knowing  what  they  ought  to  do  they  still  do 
nothing ;  their  judgment  is  in  "  the  hapless  plight  of 
having  no  effective  forces  to  execute  its  decrees."  In 
fact,  the  power  of  the  understanding  is  reflective  and 
inhibitory,  being  exhibited  rather  in  the  hindrance  of 
passion-prompted  action,  and  in  the  guidance  of  our 
impulses,  than  in  the  instigation  of  conduct ;  its  office  in 
the  individual  as  in  the  race  is,  as  Comte  systematically 
and  emphatically  pointed  out,  not  to  impart  the  habitual 
impulsion,  but  deliberative.  (<) 

As  there  are  two  factors  which  go  to  the  production 
of  an  emotion — namely,  the  organic  element  and  the 
external  stimulus — it  is  plain  that  the  character  of  the 
emotional  result  will  not  be  determined  by  the  nature  of 
the  stimulus  only,  but  will  depend  greatly  upon  the  con- 
dition of  the  organic  element  The  equilibrium  between 
the  individual  and  his  surroundings  may,  in  fact,  be 
disturbed  by  a  subjective  modification,  or  an  internal 
commotion,  as  well  as  by  an  unwonted  impression  from 
without  When  some  bodily  derangement  has  affected  the 
condition  of  the  cells  of  the  hemispherical  ganglia,  either 


VI.]     THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIXD.     359 

directly  or  by  a  sympathetic  action,  then  an  idea  arising 
is  accompanied  with  certain  emotional  qualities,  though 
it  is  an  idea  which,  in  health,  is  commonly  indifferent ; 
just  as  when  a  morbid  state  of  an  organ  of  sense,  or  of 
its  sensory  ganglion,  renders  painful  an  impression  which 
in  health  would  be  indifferent  or  even  agreeable.  Every 
one's  experience  teaches  how  much  his  tone  of  mind 
varies  according  to  his  bodily  states.  The  drunken  man, 
at  a  certain  stage  of  his  degradation,  becomes  absurdly 
emotional ;  and  the  general  paralytic,  whose  supreme 
nervous  centres  are  visibly  degenerate,  is  characterised 
by  great  emotional  excitability,  as  well  as  by  intellectual 
feebleness.  The  general  feeling  of  well-being  which  is 
the  result  of  a  healthy  condition  of  all  the  organs  of 
the  body  and  the  expression  of  a  complete  harmony  of 
functions  is  known  as  the  ccencesthesis,  and  is  sometimes 
described  as  an  emotion  :  but  it  is  not  a  definite  emo- 
tion, although  it  determines  the  emotional  tone  ;  it  is  the 
body's  sensation  or  feeling  of  its  well-being,  and  marks 
a  condition  of  things,  therefore,  in  which  activity  of  any 
kind  will  be  pleasurable — in  which  an  idea  that  arises 
will  be  pleasantly  emotional,  not  otherwise  than  as 
bodily  movement  is  then  pleasurable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  general  feeling  of  discomfort  which  follows 
upon  a  visceral  disturbance,  or  some  other  cause,  is  a 
condition  in  which  activity  of  any  kind  will  be  rather 
painful  than  otherwise  ;  there  is  a  restricted  or  hindered 
personality,  and  an  idea  arising  is  apt  to  be  gloomily 
emotional. 

It  plainly  amounts  to  the  same  thing  whether  an 
excessive  stimulus  acts  upon  nerve-element  when  in 
a  stable  and  healthy  state  and  produces  suffering,  or 
whether  a  natural  stimulus  acts  upon  it  when  in  an 
enfeebled  or  unstable  condition  and  similarly  gives  rise 
to  suffering:  in  both  cases,  there  is,  physically  speak- 
ing, a  disturbance  of  the  equilibrium  of  the  nervous 


36o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

element,  or  a  resolution  of  it  into  lower  but  more  stable 
compounds;  or,  psychologically  speaking,  there  is,  in 
both  cases,  an  idea  excited  which  is  attended  with 
painful  emotional  qualities — an  idea  unfavourable  to 
individual  expansion.  The  pain  which  is  occasioned  is 
the  cry  of  organic  element  for  deliverance.  The  greater 
the  disturbance  of  nerve-element,  however  produced, 
the  more  unstable  is  its  state;  and  an  instability  of 
it,  signifying,  as  it  does,  a  susceptibility  to  rapid  mole- 
cular or  chemical  retrograde  metamorphosis,  furnishes 
the  most  favourable  conditions  for  the  production  of 
emotion,  passion,  or  commotion,  as  the  term  was  of  old. 
It  is  easy  to  perceive,  then,  how  it  is  that  great  emotion, 
which  is  of  the  nature  of  a  molecular  explosion  in  the 
nerve-element,  is  exceedingly  exhausting — for  the  same 
reason,  in  fact,  that  repeated  electrical  discharges  by  the 
gymnotus  or  torpedo  produce  exhaustion ;  it  is  easy  to 
perceive,  also,  that  whatever  caus£,  moral  or  physical, 
works  an  exhausting  or  depressing  effect  upon  an  in- 
dividual, inclines  him  to  become  emotional  and  to  be 
distressed  by  ideas  which  trouble  him  not  when  he  is 
strong. 

The  original  nature  of  nerve-structure  is,  however,  but 
one,  though  the  main,  element  in  the  determination  of 
the  fundamental  character  of  the  emotions ;  we  have  to 
take  account  also  of  its  acquired  nature  as  this  has  been 
slowly  organised  by  education,  the  relationships  of  life, 
occupations  and  pursuits,  and  a  thousand  accidental 
circumstances.  Much  discussion  has  taken  place  as  to 
whether  an  emotion  is  merely  a  feeling  of  pleasure  or 
pain  accompanying  a  particular  idea ;  whether,  for  ex- 
ample, benevolence  is  nothing  more  than  the  pleasant 
feeling  that  accompanies  the  idea  of  accomplishing  the 
good  of  another,  malice  the  feeling  that  attends  the  idea 
of  injuring  another,  and  so  on.  But  there  is  some  danger 
here  of  being  confused  or  misled  by  words  :  it  certainly 


vt.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.    361 

must  be  allowed  that  there  is  something  in  the  emotion 
more  special  than  the  general  feeling  either  of  pleasure 
or  pain ;  such  feeling  is  present,  no  doubt,  but  it  does 
not  determine  the  special  character  of  the  emotion  ;  it  is 
comething  superadded  which  determines  only  the  agree- 
ableness  or  disagreeable  ness  of  the  emotion.  It  is,  in 
reality,  the  specific  character  of  the  idea  which  de- 
termines the  specific  character  of  the  emotion ;  and 
accordingly  emotions  are  as  many  and  various  as  ideas.  (°) 
And  it  was  before  shown  that  the  character  of  the  idea 
is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  impression  from 
without,  and  by  the  nature,  as  modified  by  a  life  ex- 
perience, of  the  reacting  nervous  centre :  this  now  con- 
taining an  organisation  of  ideas  as  its  acquired  nature, 
or  as  the  expression  of  its  due  development.  But 
inasmuch  as  the  individual  inherits  a  certain  tempera- 
ment, which  is  the  expression  of  the  entire  constitution 
of  his  body  and  displays  its  affective  proclivities  at  the  1 
earliest  period  of  life,  the  general  lines  of  his  ideational 
organisation  are  laid  down  for  him  in  his  nature  :  his 
conscious  evolutions  will  follow  the  leading  bents  of  his 
nature  as  they  declare  themselves  in  his  fundamental 
feelings  and  desires,  and  he  will  grow  into  the  maturity 
of  that  form  of  character  which  these  radical  tendencies 
promote. 

How  difficult  it  is  to  explain  matters  from  a  psycho- 
logical point  of  view  is  easy  to  perceive ;  while  we 
are  considering  the  relation  of  emotion  to  idea,  they 
are  both  concomitant  effects  of  deeper  lying  causes.  As 
there  are  subjective  sensations,  so  also  are  there  sub- 
jective emotional  states.  It  depends  upon  the  nature  of 
the  fundamental  elements,  the  internal  reacting  centre 
and  the  external  impression,  whether  in  a  given  case  we 
shall  have  a  definite  idea  with  little  or  no  emotional 
quality,  or  whether  we  shall  have  the  emotional  quality 
so  marked  that  the  idea  is  almost  lost  in  it.  The  hemi- 


362  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

spherical  centres  are  confessedly  not  sensitive  to  pain ; 
but  they  have  a  sensibility  of  their  own  to  ideas,  and  the 
sensibility  which  thus  declares  the  manner  of  their 
affection  is  what  we  call  emotional.  And  as  there  may 
be  a  hypergesthesia  or  an  anaesthesia  of  sense,  owing  to 
the  condition  of  the  sensory  centre,  so  also  there  may 
be  a  hyperaesthesia  or  an  anaesthesia  of  ideas,  owing  to 
the  conditions  of  the  ideational  centre.  Certainly  there 
do  not  appear  to  be  satisfactory  grounds  either  in  psy- 
chology or  physiology  for  supposing,  as  some  writers  do, 
the  nervous  centres  of  the  emotions  to  be  situated  else- 
where than  in  the  convolutions  of  the  brain. 

As  we  justly  speak  of  the  tone  of  the  spinal  cord,  by 
the  variations  of  which  its  functions  are  so  much  affec- 
ted, so  we  may  fairly  also  speak  of  a  mental  or  psychical 
tone,  the  tone  of  the  supreme  nervous  centres,  the  varia- 
tions of  which  so  greatly  affect  the  character  of  the 
mental  states  that  supervene.  And  as  it  appeared  when 
treating  of  the  spinal  cord  that,  apart  from  its  original 
nature  and  accidental  causes  of  disturbance,  the  tone  of 
it  was  determined  by  the  totality  of  impressions  made 
upon  it,  and  of  motor  reactions  thereto,  which  had  been 
organised  in  its  constitution  as  faculties ;  so  with  regard 
to  the  supreme  centres  of  our  mental  life,  from  the  resi- 
dua of  past  thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions,  which  have 
been  organised  as  mental  faculties,  there  results  a  certain 
psychical  tone  or  character  in  each  individual.  This  is 
the  basis  of  the  conception  of  the  ego — the  affections  of 
which  best  reveal  the  real  nature — a  conception  which, 
so  far  from  being,  as  is  sometimes  said,  fixed  and  un- 
changing, undergoes  gradual  change  with  the  change  of 
the  individual's  relations  as  life  proceeds.*  Whosoever 

*  "  Thus  you  see  that  in  th :  course  of  a  long  life  a  man  may  be 
several  persons,  so  dissimilar  that,if  you  could  find  a  real  individual 
that  should  nearly  exemplify  the  character  in  one  of  these  stages, 
and  another  that  should  exemplify  it  in  the  next,  and  so  on  to  the 


vi.  J      THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     363 

candidly  reflects  upon  the  striking  modification,  or  rather 
revolution,  of  the  ego  which  happens  at  the  time  of  pu- 
berty both  in  men  and  women,  will  surely  not  find  it 
hard  to  conceive  how  the  self  may  imperceptibly  but 
surely  change  through  life.  The  education  and  experi- 
ence to  which  any  one  is  subjected  likewise  modify,  if 
less  suddenly,  not  less  certainly,  the  tone  of  his  charac- 
ter. By  constantly  blaming  some  actions  and  praising 
others  in  their  children,  parents  are  able  so  to  form  their 
characters  that,  apart  from  any  reflection,  these  shall 
ever  in  after  life  be  attended  with  a  certain  pleasure ; 
those,  on  the  other  hand,  with  a  certain  pain.  Men 
become  as  automatic  in  their  feelings  as  they  notably 
are  in  their  thoughts  and  actions ;  and  they  go  on  fos- 
tering these  feelings  by  seeking  those  things  which 
excite  pleasant  emotions  and  shunning  those  things 
which  excite  painful  emotions.  Moreover,  the  whole 
aim  of  the  education  which  they  give  to  their  children 
is  to  make  them  think,  feel,  talk,  and  act  just  as  they 
themselves  do,  to  make  them  react  in  the  same  way  to 
the  same  impressions ;  so  that  one  generation  of  men  is 
almost  a  repetition  of  the  preceding  one,  and  the  marvel 
is,  not  that  men  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  their  fore- 
fathers, but  that  variations  do  take  place,  that  an  original 
man  who  is  inspired  to  go  out  of  the  usual  grooves  of 
thought,  feeling  and  action  ever  is  produced  among  any 
people.  Experience  proves  that  the  customs  and  re- 
ligions of  different  nations  differ  most  widely;  what  one 
nation  views  as  crime  another  praises  as  virtue;  what 
one  nation  applauds  as  a  legitimate  pleasure,  another 

last,  and  then  bring  these  several  persons  together  into  one  com- 
pany, which  would  thus  be  a  representation  of  the  successive  stages 
of  one  man,  they  would  feel  themselves  a  most  heterogeneous  party, 
would  oppose  and  probably  despise  one  another,  and  soon  separate, 
not  caring  if  they  were  never  to  meet  again."  Essays,  John  Foster, 
p.  57,  a;th  Ed. 


364  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

reprobates  as  a  shameful  vice  :  there  is  scarcely  a  single 
crime  or  vice  that  has  not  been  exalted  into  a  religious 
observance  by  one  nation  or  other  at  one  period  or 
other  of  the  world's  history.  The  prayer  of  the  Thug 
was  a  homicide,  his  sacrifice  a  corpse.  How  much, 
then,  is  the  moral  feeling  or  conscience  dependent  upon 
the  due  educational  development  of  the  mind  !  (°) 

The  manner  in  which  music  affects  some  persons,  pro- 
ducing a  lively  feeling  of  immediate  pleasure,  calming 
mental  agitation  and  exalting  the  mental  tone,  and  there- 
by indirectly  much  affecting  mental  activity,  affords  an 
excellent  example  of  a  marked  effect  upon  the  psychical 
tone  by  physical  agency ;  it  might  be  adduced,  if  it  were 
necessary,  to  attest  the  corporeal  nature  of  the  process. 
Such  sentiments  as  the  love  of  wife  and  the  love  of  chil- 
dren, various  as  they  are  in  kind  and  degree  in  different 
persons,  are  not  so  much  definite  emotions  as  a  general 
tone  of  feeling  resulting  from  certain  relations  in  life ; 
they  represent  a  mental  state  in  which  ideas  in  har- 
mony with  the  tone  of  mind  will  be  attended  with  a 
pleasant  emotion,  and  discordant  ideas  with  a  painful 
emotion,  just  as  harmony  in  music  produces  pleasure 
and  discord  produces  pain.  So  also  of  the  refined  feel- 
ing of  social  propriety,  which  is  easily  recognised  in  one 
who  has  it,  and  the  absence  of  which  cannot  be  con- 
cealed, is  indeed  made  more  evident,  by  the  pretence  of 
it ;  there  is  not  a  definite  emotion,  but  a  disposition  or 
tone  of  mind  with  which  certain  thoughts,  feelings  and 
actions  harmonize  so  as  to  occasion  pleasure.  The  re- 
freshing and  invigorating  influence  of  some  powerful 
imaginative  writers  does  not  depend  so  much  on  the 
actual  sense  of  the  words  as  upon  the  tone  of  mind 
produced  by  them.  Let  a  man  read  a  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
and  whatever  opinion  he  may  have  of  it  from  a  purely 
intellectual  point  of  view,  he  cannot  fail,  if  he  have  any 
harmony  of  soul  in  him,  to  be  stirred  to  a  high  emotional 


vi.]      THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  JU LVD.     365 

tone  by  its  lofty  strain  of  feeling  and  its   grandeur  of 
conception. 

Again,  the  higher  aesthetic  feelings  are  without  question 
the  result  of  a  good  cultivation,  conscious  development 
having  imperceptibly  become  a  sort  of  instinctive  en- 
dowment, a  refinement  to  which  vulgarity  of  any  kind 
will  be  repugnant ;  they  are  the  bloom  of  a  high  culture, 
and,  like  the  ccencesthesis,  represent  a  general  tone  of 
mind  which  cannot  be  described  as  definite  emotion, 
but  in  which  certain  ideas  that  arise  will  have  pleasant 
emotional  qualities.  Moral  feeling,  however,  furnishes 
the  highest  example  of  this  acquisition  of  excellence 
of  tone,  by  virtue  of  which  certain  actions  instantly, 
without  reflection,  attract  as  virtuous,  others  are  re- 
pelled as  vicious.  Reflect,  again,  on  the  powerful 
effects  which  the  aspects  of  nature  produce  upon  philo- 
sophic minds  of  the  highest  order:  the  vague  mys- 
terious feelings  which  such  minds  have,  as  instinctive 
expressions  of  their  fellowship  with  nature,  thrills  of 
that  deep  harmonious  sympathy  with  nature  whereby 
they  are  transported  with  an  indefinite  feeling  of  joy 
in  view  of  certain  of  her  glories,  or  oppressed  by 
a  dim  presentiment  of  evil  under  different  relations — 
these  are  vague  psychical  feelings  that  in  reality  connote 
the  highest  intellectual  acquisition  ;  they  are  the  con- 
summate inflorescence  of  the  highest  psychical  de- 
velopment, the  supreme  harmonies  of  the  most  exalted 
psychical  tone.  (') 

We  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  when  we  speak 
of  the  original  nature  of  nerve-element  we  have  by  no 
means  a  simple  factor  to  deal  with ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  a  very  complex  affair,  and  the  study  of  its  affections, 
if  thorough,  must  go  deeper  than  the  individual  and  his 
consciousness.  It  admits  of  no  doubt  that  capacities  of 
emotion  which  are  now  innate  in  the  individual  have  been 
acquired  by  the  race.  A  well-born  individual  of  the 
17 


366  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

most  cultivated  nation  in  the  most  civilised  age  is  capable 
of  feeling  emotions  which  it  would  be  impossible  to 
arouse  in  the  mind  of  a  low  savage ;  and  even  were  the 
two  persons  placed  under  the  same  external  conditions 
from  the  moment  of  birth,  the  difference  in  this  respect 
would  undoubtedly  still  be  vast.  It  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  any  circumstances,  though  ever  so  carefully 
adapted,  would  produce  in  the  savage,  if  placed  under 
their  fullest  influence  from  his  childhood,  the  refined  and 
complex  emotions  of  the  highest  civilisation.  There  is 
not  a  being  born  into  the  world  who  does  not  carry  in 
his  nature  the  cultivation  of  his  epoch,  marking,  so  to 
speak,  its  stage  of  humanization ;  even  the  idiot  displays 
something  of  it  in  his  wreck  of  mind;  and  in  order  to  bring 
the  low  savage  to  the  level  of  the  cultivated  European,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  carry  on  a  process  of  humaniza- 
tion, or,  to  coin  a  more  special  word  for  present  use,  a 
process  of  emotionalization,  through  many  generations. 
It  is  in  consequence  of  his  natural  inheritance  that  the 
civilised  person  may  have  vague  emotions  aroused  in  his 
mind  before  experience  has  given  to  them  definite  form, 
diffused  indefinite  feelings  such  as  the  savage  cannot 
have,  which  fit  him  for  subsequent  special  culture  along 
definite  emotional  tracks.  The  so-called  preconscious  soul, 
of  which  some  philosophers  have  written,  is  truly  the  pre- 
conscious mental  life  of  the  race,  incorporated  and 
awakening  to  consciousness  in  the  latest  embodiments  of 
humanity.  Whosoever  then  would  make  a  complete 
analytical  study  of  the  emotions,  must  go  backwards 
through  the  course  of  evolution  of  mankind,  resolving 
into  its  simple  elements  much  that  now  is  a  complex 
whole ;  must,  as  it  were,  fantastically  imagine  mankind 
to  live  back  again  to  its  earliest  infancy,  through  all  the 
scenes  of  its  past  history,  and  to  give  off  from  its  mental 
acquisitions  at  each  step,  as  it  goes  backwards,  that 
which  was  gained  when  it  was  there  in  its  progress ;  thus 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     367 

displaying  the  genesis  of  the  emotions  by  stripping  off  one 
contribution  after  another,  and  laying  bare  the  naked 
state  of  man  at  the  beginning  of  the  long  train  of  mental 
modifications  and  acquisitions.* 

This  resolution  or  retrograde  metamorphosis  of  the 
emotional  nature  is  sometimes  partially  done  for  us  by 
disease.  At  any  rate  this  is  the  best  explanation  which 
I  have  to  offer  of  the  extraordinary  precocity  in  cunning, 
lying,  and  vicious  propensities  which  is  displayed  some- 
times by  certain  very  young  children  who,  descended 
from  families  in  which  insanity  or  epilepsy  prevails,  are 
afflicted  with  a  genuine  moral  insanity.  They  are  desti- 
tute of  all  feelings  of  affection  for  father  or  mother, 
brother  or  sister;  have  no  social  sympathies,  so  that  they 
mingle  not  with  other  children  in  their  play  and  their 
pursuits ;  delight  in  destruction  and  in  the  infliction  of 
cruel  tortures  on  such  animals  as  they  dare  meddle 
with  ;  lie  or  steal  with  an  ingenuity  that  is  incredible  to 
those  who  have  not  experience  of  their  extreme  moral 
perversion;  and  display  sometimes  a  surprising  pre- 
cocity of  sexual  feelings  and  propensities.  They  are 
not  in  the  least  degree  susceptible  to  moral  influence,  the 
severest  penal  discipline  and  the  most  patient  forbearance 
alike  utterly  failing  to  work  a  reformation  in  their 
character.  The  fact  is  that  they  are  destitute  of  that 
potentiality  of  moral  development  which  should  be  innate 
in  the  human  constitution  at  this  age,  in  this  respect  being 
on  a  level  with  the  monkey,  which  they  resemble  in  their 
conduct ;  they  are  anti-social  beings,  bereft,  through  the 
tyranny  of  a  bad  organisation,  of  the  moral  element 
which  is  the  latest  acquisition  of  human  evolution.  But 
their  nature  contains  implicitly,  as  by  involution,  all  the 
lower  elements  of  the  human  kind,  all  those  which  it 
shares  with  the  monkey  and  other  animals,  and  which  it 

*  Foster,  in  hU  Essays,  makes  this  conception  of  the  individual 
character. 


363  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

presumably  displayed  in  unrestrained  freedom  in  the 
premoral  ages  of  its  existence.  Consequently,  when 
such  an  insane  being  appears  on  the  scene,  we  witness 
an  instance  of  decomposition  of  the  human  kind;  there 
is  not  only  an  individual,  but  there  is  human  nature,  in 
perverse  action,  in  retrograde  metamorphosis  ;  wherefore 
are  presented  exhibitions  of  degenerate  action  which, 
so  far  as  regards  the  individual  child,  seem  to  mark  an 
inexplicable  prematurity  of  vice. 

Humanity  is  contained  in  the  individual;  whatever 
act  of  vice,  folly,  crime,  or  madness  one  man  has  per- 
petrated, each  man  has  in  him  the  potentiality  of  per- 
petrating; for  which  reason  men  read  and  do  well  to 
read  regularly  the  ten  commandments,  and  to  pray 
that  their  hearts  may  be  inclined  to  keep  them.  As 
in  one  word  ages  of  human  culture  are  summed  up, 
so  in  one  mortal  are  summed  up  generations  of  human 
existence :  in  his  nature  as  in  his  knowledge  man  is  the 
inheritor  of  the  acquisitions  of  the  past — the  heir  of  all 
the  ages.  If  we  take  the  words  which  express  the  thoughts 
of  a  high  mental  culture,  and  trace  their  origin  and  the 
gradual  development  of  their  meanings,  what  a  succes- 
sion of  human  experiences,  rising  in  complexity,  is  dis- 
played !  What  a  slow  process  of  growth  unfolds  itself, 
answering  to  the  slow  gains  of  mankind,  before  the 
abstract  word  reached  that  speciality  and  complexity  of 
evolution  which  it  now  marks  !  There  is  not  an  abstract 
term  which  does  not  mean  generations  of  human  culture. 
Let  us  take,  in  like  manner,  the  human  being,  and  trace 
back  through  the  long  records  of  ages  the  steps  of  his 
genesis,  or  examine  rather  the  resolution  of  his  essential 
human  nature  into  its  lower  elements,  as  exhibited  in  the 
degenerate  acts  and  tendencies  of  the  insane  child,  and 
we  shall  cease  to  be  surprised  at  phenomena  which  the 
young  creature  never  could  have  acquired,  and  which,  so 
far  as  its  conscious  life  is  concerned,  appear  strangely 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     369 

precocious  and  inexplicable.  We  are  witnesses  of  a 
retrograde  metamorphosis  of  humanity,  ol  the  undoing 
of  what  has  been  done  through  the  ages,  of  the  form- 
less ruin  of  carefully  fashioned  form. 

Besides  the  emotional  nature  of  his  kind  at  the  par- 
ticular grade  of  its  development  which  a  man  has  innate 
in  him,  he  inherits  also  the  more  special  emotional 
nature  of  his  own  immediate  ancestors.  His  father  and 
mother,  his  grandfather  and  grandmother,  are  latent  or 
declare  themselves  in  him ;  and  it  is  on  the  lines  thus 
laid  in  his  nature  that  his  development  will  proceed.  It 
is  not  by  virtue  of  education  so  much  as  by  virtue  of 
inheritance  that  he  is  brave  or  timid,  generous  or  selfish, 
prudent  or  reckless,  boastful  or  modest,  quick  or  placid 
in  temper  ;  the  ground-tone  of  his  character  is  original  in 
him,  and  it  colours  all  the  subsequently  formed  emotions 
and  their  sympathetic  ideas.  As  the  susceptibility  of  a 
particular  sense  may  draw  the  individual  to  certain  pur- 
suits in  life  and  so  affect  greatly  the  character  of  his 
intellectual  development,  so  the  predominance  of  a 
certain  emotional  tone  will  operate  to  determine  an 
organization  of  sympathetic  ideas.  The  influence  of 
systematic  culture  upon  any  one  is  no  doubt  great,  but 
that  which  determines  the  limit  and  even  in  some 
degree  the  nature  of  the  effects  of  culture,  that  which 
forms  the  foundation  upon  which  all  the  modifications 
of  art  must  rest,  is  the  inherited  nature.  Many  an  ex- 
perience in  life  teaches  the  individual  who  has  had  the 
blessing  of  a  good  parentage  how  incalculable  is  his 
debt ;  when  compelled  to  act  at  critical  moments,  cr 
under  difficult  and  trying  circumstances  to  which  he  was 
not  consciously  equal,  or  under  great  temptation  to 
wrong,  or  in  any  other  case  in  which  his  art  has  failed 
him,  he  shall  have  had  cause  to  bless  the  nature  which  he 
has  inherited,  to  give  thanks  for  the  reserve  force  of  a 
sound  and  vigorous  character  which  his  parents  have 


370  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

endowed  him  with,  and  which  has  stood  him  in  good 
stead  and  inspired  him,  as  his  leisurely  consideration 
proves,  to  do  rightly  when  he  knew  not  what  he  was 
doing.  The  individual's  nature  is  beneath  his  art  :  if 
sound,  it  will  come  to  his  rescue  when  culture  fails 
him ;  if  unsound,  it  will  overthrow  him  in  the  hour  oi 
trial  in  spite  of  culture.  Better  than  all  that  has  been 
taught  him  by  his  pastors  and  masters,  it  will  enable  him 
to  meet  his  last  fate  with  becoming  dignity  in  the  hour 
of  death  and  in  the  day  of  judgment 

Those  who  have  had  the  most  experience  of  men 
and  affairs,  and  the  insight  to  profit  well  by  it,  re- 
cognize the  unfailing  constancy  of  the  manifestations 
of  character ;  they  reckon  upon  the  acts  and  feelings  of 
persons  with  whom  they  have  to  do,  as  they  do  upon 
the  outcome  of  an  arithmetical  calculation  or  upon  the 
effects  of  physical  and  chemical  laws;  looking  to  the  tree 
for  fruit  after  its  kind,  they  cannot  be  persuaded  that 
grapes  will  ever  grow  on  thorns  or  figs  on  thistles.  Com- 
mon observation  has  always  recognized,  and  has  expressed 
in  various  popular  sayings  in  all  languages,  the  vital  in- 
fluence of  breed  upon  character,  and  the  impossibility  of 
eradicating  nature.  It  is  more  important  to  know  what  a 
man's  father  or  mother  was  than  what  his  schoolmaster 
was.  If  he  has  not  got  the  basis  of  a  strong  character 
in  the  original  constitutional  structure  of  his  mind,  he 
will  never  acquire  it ;  for  if  he  has  it  not,  how  can  he 
have  sufficient  force  of  will  to  make  the  complete  ex- 
periment ;  and  if  he  can  exert  the  requisite  will  to 
use  the  means  for  its  attainment,  he  already  has  the 
character. 

In  considering  the  complex  nature  of  the  emotions  or 
affections  of  mind,  it  is  necessary  not  only  to  take  ac- 
count of  the  inherited  acquisitions  of  the  race,  of  the 
more  special  inheritance  from  the  immediate  ancestors, 
ind  of  the  effects  of  education,  but  it  is  necessary  also 


vi.]     THE  EMO  T10NS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     371 

to  take  account  of  the  effects  which  the  different  bodily 
organs  exert  upon  the  mental  life.  They  are  the  foun- 
dations of  the  affective  nature.  As  each  sensory  organ, 
or  as  each  group  of  movements,  has  its  representative 
centre  in  the  grey  matter  of  the  cerebral  convolutions, 
so  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  each  internal  organ 
of  the  body  has  its  representative  centre  in  the  supreme 
cerebral  centres,  through  which  it  takes  its  essential 
part  in  the  constitution  and  function  of  mind.  The 
nature  of  our  sensory  perception  of  lig"ht,  sound,  taste, 
smell,  is  determined  by  the  special  organs  of  these 
senses,  the  same  impression  on  the  different  organs,  if 
capable  of  stimulating  them,  giving  rise  to  their  special 
sensations ;  in  like  manner,  it  may  well  be  that  other 
organs  of  the  body  have  their  specific  effects  upon  mind, 
giving  rise  to  specific  emotions  and  their  sympathetic 
ideas.  They  are  plainly  bound  together  in  the  closest 
union  and  sympathy,  constituting  a  physiological  com- 
monwealth in  which  if  one  member  suffer  the  other 
members  suffer  with  it ;  for  although  they  are  insensible 
to  touch  when  exposed,  they  have  a  sensibility  of  their 
own,  different  in  kind  from  that  of  the  skin,  by  virtue  of 
which  they  agree  in  a  consent  of  functions,  and  feel  and 
sympathize  with  one  another's  affections.  Now  the  brain 
is  the  leading  member  of  this  physiological  union,  the 
centre  in  which  the  different  organic  impressions  meet 
and  are  co-ordinated  ;  wherefore  the  supposition  that  it 
carries  on  this  important  function  of  organic  life  quite 
apart  from  and  independently  of  its  function  as  the 
organ  of  mind  would  be  most  improbable,  even  if  ob- 
servation did  not  contradict  it. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  observation  does  contradict  it 
positively.  We  have  the  plainest  instance  of  this  in 
the  case  of  the  reproductive  organs,  the  functional  de- 
velopment of  which,  taking  place  somewhat  abruptly  at 
puberty,  works  a  complete  revolution  in  the  mental 


3J2  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

character.  The  individual  is  transformed :  his  entire 
sentiency  is  changed,  and  he  becomes  susceptible  to 
impressions  which  before  were  completely  indifferent  to 
him  ;  a  look,  a  tone,  an  odour,  a  touch  arouses  emotion 
that  is  quite  new  to  him,  and  sympathetic  ideas  that 
come  he  knows  not  whence  or  how.  Strange  and  vague 
feelings,  aimless  longings,  obscure  impulses,  and  novel 
ideas  witness  to  the  commotion  which  the  newly-deve- 
loped function  is  making  by  its  irruption  into  the  mental 
life:  there  is  an  "awakening  of  sensual  impulses  which 
clothe  themselves  in  mental  forms,  of  mental  necessities 
which  clothe  themselves  in  sensual  images."  It  is  now, 
too,  that  altruistic  feeling  begins  to  germinate  in  the 
mind ;  before  puberty  a  boy  is  the  most  complete 
egoist,  taking  as  a  matter  of  course  all  the  affection  and 
care  which  are  lavished  upon  him;  but,  after  puberty, 
he  begins  for  the  first  time  to  have  some  sense  of  what 
others  do  for  him,  and  to  display  some  feeling  of  his 
obligation  to  them.  If  we  were  to  go  on  to  follow 
the  development  of  the  sexual  instinct  to  its  highest 
reach  we  should  not  fail  to  discover  a  great  range  of 
operation ;  for  we  might  trace  its  influence  in  the  high- 
est feelings  of  mankind,  social,  moral,  and  religious. 
These  evolutional  effects  of  the  functional  develop- 
ment of  the  reproductive  organs  upon  the  mind  do  not 
take  place  when  such  development  is  prevented  by  their 
removal  before  puberty.  The  minds  of  eunuchs  are 
mutilated  like  their  bodies ;  they  are  said  to  be  cowardly, 
envious,  liars,  utterly  deceitful,  destitute  of  social  and 
moral  feeling;  with  the  deprivation  of  sexual  feeling, 
they  are  deprived  of  all  the  mental  growth  and  energy 
which  it  inspires  directly  or  remotely.  How  much  that 
is  it  would  be  hard  to  say ;  but  were  man  deprived  of  the 
instinct  of  propagation,  and  of  all  that  mentally  springs 
from  it,  it  is  probable  that  most  of  the  poetry,and  per- 
haps all  the  moral  feeling,  would  be  cut  out  of  his  life. 


vi,  ]     THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     373 

We  have  not  the  same  opportunity  of  observing  the 
mental  effects  of  other  bodily  organs  which  we  have  in 
the  case  of  the  reproductive  organs,  because  they  are  in 
functional  action  directly  we  are  born,  or  long  before  we 
are  capable  of  any  mental  function,  and  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing  what  sort  of  mind  we  should  have 
without  them.  But  it  may  well  be  that  the  general  uni- 
formity of  passions  and  desires  among  mankind  is  owing 
to  the  uniform  operation  of  the  bodily  organs  upon  the 
brain,  just  as  the  general  uniformity  of  their  ideas  is 
owing  to  the  uniform  action  of  the  organs  of  the  senses. 
Because  all  men  have  the  same  number  and  kind  of 
senses,  therefore  they  have  the  same  kind  of  intellectual 
function ;  and,  in  like  manner,  we  may  suppose  that 
they  have  the  same  kind  of  passions  because  they  have 
the  same  number  and  kind  of  internal  organs,  each  of 
which  has  its  more  or  less  specific  operation  upon  the 
mind.  To  me  it  seems  a  scientific  truth  that  there  is 
nothing  outwardly  displayed  in  the  bodily  function 
which  has  not  its  internal  representation  in  the  central 
nervous  system — which  is  not,  so  to  speak,  contained 
in  the  innermost — and  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  effect  of 
each  different  organic  structure  with  its  corresponding 
function  upon  the  brain  is  special ;  that  the  outer  differ- 
entiations betoken  corresponding  inner  differentiations. 
As  the  internal  organs  have  not  any  direct  communica- 
tion with  the  environment  of  the  organism,  they  would, 
had  they  not  cortical  representation  in  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres, be  without  any  means  of  adjustment  to  its  ex- 
ternal relations  either  directly  or  indirectly,  notwith- 
standing that  such  adjustment,  in  a  direct  or  indirect 
way,  is  a  characteristic  of  life  in  all  its  forms ;  but 
having,  as  I  believe,  their  cerebral  representation,  they 
exert  thereby  such  effect  upon  the  so-called  animal  life 
or  the  life  of  relation  of  the  whole  organism  as  ii 
fitting  for  them  as  co-ordinated  parts  of  a  complex 


374  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

whole.  And  that  is  no  small  effect ;  for  it  is  from  the 
affections  of  mind  that  the  impulses  to  action  spring — 
from  the  organic  life,  therefore,  that  the  motor  force  of 
the  body  is  fundamentally  derived. 

It  need  not  be  supposed  that  each  organ  is  the  direct 
cause  of  a  special  passion  or  desire — that  tenderness  lies 
in  the  heart,  anger  in  the  liver,  envy  in  the  spleen,  as 
old  writers  believed  ;  it  is  sufficient  to  assume  that  each 
organ  sends  its  unfelt  contribution  to  the  systemic  con- 
sciousness or  ccengesthesis,  and  modifies  it  accordingly. 
The  consciousness  of  the  moment   may  be  conceived 
to  be  the  complex  product  of  an  infinite  multitude  of 
simple  and  compound  vibrations  coming  from  the  ex- 
ternal and  internal  organs  of  the  body.     And  just  as  the 
condition  of  the  reproductive  organs  produces  a  certain 
tone  of  the  nervous  system  which  renders  it  susceptible 
to  special  impressions,  and  promotes  the  occurrence  of 
special  ideas  and  feelings,  so  may  the  condition  of  a 
particular  organ  so  modify  the  tone  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem as  to  render  it  susceptible  to  particular  impressions, 
and  to  favour  the  occurrence  of  certain  feelings  and  their 
sympathetic  ideas ;  the  differentiated  cerebral  centre  of 
the   organ   being  in  close  relations  with  certain   idea- 
tional  tracts.      This   is   one   reason  why  psychologists 
have  not  succeeded  in  analyzing  the  emotions  as  they 
have  in  analyzing  some  of  our  apparently  simple  intel- 
lectual ideas  —  why  they  have    not  yet   decomposed 
them  into  their  elements,  as  they  have  decomposed  our 
ideas  of  figure,  size,  position,  distance.     They  are  able 
to  study  the  separate  action  of  each  of  the  several  senses 
in  the  building  up  of  an  idea,  but  they  are  not  able  to 
isolate  the   separate   action    of    each   of   the    internal 
organs  of  the  body,  and  to  estimate  its  particular  func- 
tion in  the  composition  of  an  emotion.     The  method 
of    psychology    is  entirely  at  fault  here,  for  self-con- 
sciousness yields  no  help  towards  a  discovery  of  the 


M.]      THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     375 

connection  between  the  emotional  state  and  the  bodily 
organ. 

The  most  hopeful  method  to  pursue  in  this  case  would 
be  to  observe  patiently  and  carefully  the  mental  symp- 
toms of  diseases  of  the  different  organs,  so  far  as  there 
are  any,  and  the  effects  of  their  disorders  upon  dreams. 
The  emotional  or  affective  features  of  disease  of  the 
heart,  disease  of  the  lungs,  disease  of  the  liver,  are  un- 
questionably very  different  in  some  cases ;  and  although 
it  may  be  argued  that  the  effect  in  each  case  is  due  not 
to  the  direct  nervous  sympathies  of  the  organ,  but  to  an 
indirect  effect  upon  the  nervous  system  through  the 
changes  which  the  deranged  organ  produces  in  the  com- 
position or  circulation  of  the  blood,  I  doubt  greatly 
whether  the  explanation  will  be  found  sufficient  to  cover 
the  phenomena.  The  suggested  inquiry  is,  without  doubt, 
a  very  difficult  one,  but  it  is  probable  that  a  careful 
observation  and  record  of  the  curious  features  of  dreams 
might  yield  valuable  help.  No  one  will  dispute  that  we 
dream  different  dreams  according  to  our  different  bodily 
states;  the  ground-tone  of  feeling  being  sometimes 
manifestly  determined  by  the  state  of  an  internal  organ, 
the  irritation  of  which  stimulates  that  part  of  the  brain 
with  which  it  is  presumably  in  specific  sympathy.  Ideas 
that  are  associated  with  the  particular  feeling,  the  tracts 
of  them  being  presumably  in  special  relations  with  its 
centre,  thereupon  become  active  and  combine  in  a  more 
or  less  coherent  dream-drama.  When  the  avenues  of 
impression  upon  the  brain  through  the  external  senses 
are  closed  by  sleep,  and  the  consciousness  of  the  outer 
world  is  in  abeyance,  there  may  well  be  a  greater  suscep- 
tibility to  impressions  from  within  the  body,  and  so  the 
physiological  sympathies  of  organs  may  declare  them- 
selves more  distinctly,  just  as  the  stars,  invisible  in  the 
day,  shine  forth  brightly  at  night  when  the  sun  goes 
down.  These  organic  sympathies  which  are  the  condi- 


376  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

lions  of  affective  function  are  not  completely  intermit- 
tent like  sensory  and  motor  functions ;  they  cease  not 
entirely  day  or  night  until  the  sun  of  life  sets  for  ever  in 
death.  "  We  tire  of  thinking  and  acting,"  says  Comte ; 
"  we  never  tire  of  loving." 

If  it  be  thought  that  I  lay  too  great  stress  upon  the 
influence  of  bodily  organs  upon  mental  states,  and  that 
it  is  impossible  we  should  owe  so  much  to  them  without 
being  more  conscious  than  we  are  of  their  operations, 
let  it  be  considered  how  much  we  owe  to  our  muscular 
sense  without  being  ever  conscious  of  its  action  until 
we  are  deprived  of  it.  When  the  muscular  sense  of  a 
limb  is  paralyzed,  the  motor  power  being  unaffected,  as 
happens  in  one  form  of  disease,  the  person  cannot 
regulate  its  movements  and  use  it  unless  he  makes  use 
of  the  sense  of  sight  to  inform  him  of  his  condition  : 
when  the  arm  is  thus  affected  he  cannot  grasp  an  object 
unless  he  looks  at  it,  and  if  he  has  laid  hold  of  it  he 
instantly  lets  it  drop  when  he  turns  his  eyes  away ;  if  his 
legs  are  affected,  he  cannot  stand  but  totters  and  falls 
down  when  he  shuts  his  eyes.  He  walks,  sits,  stands, 
moves,  performs  all  acts  of  his  life  by  virtue  of  essential 
information  which  he  is  constantly  receiving  through  a 
thousand  channels  from  every  part  of  his  body  without 
ever  knowing  from  consciousness  that  he  is  receiving  it. 
In  like  manner  our  mental  functions  may  habitually  re- 
ceive specific  contributions  from  specific  organs  without 
being  directly  conscious  of  them,  because  they  have  been 
constantly  poured  in  from  the  first  moment  of  life  and  enter 
radically  into  the  constitution  of  the  ego.  It  is  probable 
that  much  of  the  mental  characters  of  diseases  may  be 
due  to  modifications  of  this  kind  of  influence.  Mind 
represents  a  general  consensus  between  affective,  idea- 
tional  and  active  functions,  all  of  which  co-operate  but 
one  or  other  of  which  may  predominate  on  a  particular 
occasion. 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     377 

It  is  easy  to  distinguish  two  different  classes  of 
mind  among  mankind, — a  subjective  class  marked  by 
the  tendency  to  feel  intensely  rather  than  to  see  clearly, 
or  at  any  rate  to  mix  feelings  in  observation  and 
reasoning,  more  often  met  with  amongst  women  than 
men ;  and  an  objective  class,  more  able  to  look  at 
things  in  the  dry  light  of  reason.  It  might  fairly  be 
argued  that  these  different  views  of  things  are  due  to  the 
relative  predominance  in  consciousness  of  internal  and 
external  impressions,  emotional  persons  having  suscep- 
tible internal  organs.  Women  at  any  rate  appear  to  owe 
the  self  feeling  which  shows  itself  in  quick  and  mobile 
emotional  susceptibility,  in  great  part,  to  the  cerebral 
sympathies  of  their  reproductive  organs ;  and  certainly 
the  person  who  has  fostered  self-feeling  until  it  has  swal- 
lowed  up  all  other  kind  of  feeling  is  the  hypochondriac 
who  has  cultivated  his  organic  sensibilities  into  conscious 
feelings.  He  is  like  a  person  who  by  careful  attention 
can  become  sensible,  in  listening  to  a  simple  musical  note, 
of  the  separate  harmonic  overtones  which  constitute  its 
quality,  and  which  most  persons  never  perceive. 

It  is  probable  that  many  vague  feelings  or  indefinite 
emotional  states  to  which  we  have  no  adequate  or  cor- 
responding ideas  are  produced  by  the  operations  of  the 
internal  organs ;  they  are  of  a  very  vague  character,  and 
cannot  be  expressed  in  definite  objective  signs,  where- 
fore they  cannot  become  knowledge.  We  have  the  best 
instances  of  what  I  mean  in  the  vague  overmastering 
feelings  to  which  pregnancy  and  the  development  of 
puberty  give  rise ;  and  it  is  certain  we  must  go  deeper 
than  self-conscious  analysis  will  evei  get,  to  arrive  at 
their  true  nature  and  causation.  Even  the  passion  of 
love  itself  has  its  source  in  the  unconscious  life,  and  can 
no  more  be  explained  in  consciousness  than  the  feelings 
of  hunger  and  thirst ;  it  marks  an  elective  affinity  of  the 
organism  'tthich  oftentimes  enslaves  consciousness  and 


378  THE  I'll  Y^W  LOGY  OF  ML \'D.  [CHAP. 

overpowers  volition.  The  weaker  the  conscious  factors 
in  mental  function,  the  more  power  have  the  unconscious 
factors,  as  we  plainly  see  by  the  examples  of  women  and 
of  children,  of  persons  labouring  under  sickness,  and  ot 
those  who  are  dying. 

There  is  yet  another  cause  of  affection  of  the  emo- 
tional tone  which  it  is  necessary  to  mention,  namely,  the 
condition  of  the  blood  supplied  to  the  nervous  system. 
When  its  composition  is  altered,  either  by  matter  bred 
in  it,  or  introduced  into  it,  its  influence  on  the  feelings 
is  most  marked.  Illustrations  of  this  action  being  fa- 
miliar to  everybody,  it  will  be  sufficient  here  to  call  to 
mind  the  influence  of  alcohol  upon  the  mind,  and  to 
instance  the  effect  which  Indian  hemp  or  haschisch 
produces  when  it  is  eaten.  It  occasions,  according  to 
Moreau,  a  vague,  happy,  emotional  expansion,  not  sen- 
sual but  spiritual  as  to  form,  and  not  unlike  lh.it  which 
is  produced  in  one  who  has  heard  good  news,  or  has  met 
with  a  great  success  ;  he  compares  it  also  to  the  indefi- 
nite and  tender  emotional  feeling  which  is  awakened  at 
the  epoch  of  puberty.  There  is  no  sensual  excitement 
if  there  be  no  sensual  provocation;  if,  however,  the 
sensual  organs  are  excited  by  some  means,  the  feeling 
ceases  to  be  vague  and  purely  ideal,  and  takes  definite 
form  and  aim.  In  the  East,  therefore,  it  is  said  that  the 
haschisch  is  often  mixed  with  substances  having  aphro- 
disiac properties,  in  order  to  excite  passion  and  to 
give  the  desiderated  sensual  colour  and  form  to  the 
dream-delirium.  When  the  emotional  tone  is  thus  affect- 
ed by  a  foreign  substance  introduced  into  the  blood,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  some  physical  or  chemical  effect  is 
produced  in  the  nerve-element,  which  is  the  condition  of 
the  changed  function  ;  in  fact,  as  strychnia  acting  upon 
the  motor  nerve-centres  so  affects  their  composition  that 
they  explode  in  convulsions,  so  there  are  substances 
which  acting  upon  the  higher  nerve-centres  so  affect 


vf .]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     379 

their  constitution  or  composition  that  they  discharge 
their  energy  in  molecular  explosions  of  emotion. 

When  an  emotion  is  excited  its  tendency  is  to  dis- 
charge itself  externally  by  certain  motor  channels  or 
upon  the  internal  organs  of  the  body.  In  children  and 
savages  simple  emotions  are  easily  excited,  and  rapidly 
discharged  in  movements.  A  young  child,  if  delighted, 
laughs  with  voice,  face,  limbs  and  body ;  when  in  a  vio- 
lent rage  it  rolls  on  the  ground,  screaming,  kicking, 
scratching  and  biting.  In  the  idiot  an  explosion  of 
passion  is  sometimes  an  explosion  of  convulsions.  But 
in  educated  persons,  with  whom  the  aim  of  culture  is  to 
prevent  the  explosive  display  of  emotion,  the  muscular 
expressions  thereof  are  more  limited,  being  confined 
chiefly  to  the  nose  and  mouth — to  the  orbicular  muscles 
of  the  lips  with  the  system  of  elevating  and  depressing 
muscles.  Still,  when  an  emotion  is  violent  it  escapes 
from  control,  overflows  its  ordinary  channels,  and  pours 
into  neighbouring  motor  channels :  laughter  spreads 
from  the  mouth  to  the  muscles  of  respiration,  and  from 
them  perhaps  to  the  arms  and  legs ;  and  terror  may  pro- 
duce, in  addition  to  its  usual  facial  expression,  short, 
quick  and  impeded  breathing,  gasping,  and  tremulous 
motion  of  the  lips,  convulsive  action  of  the  muscles  of 
the  neck  and  shoulder — the  extraordinary  muscles  of 
respiration — and  tumultuous  beating  of  the  heart.  When 
i  person  is  undergoing  a  gradual  suffocation  by  preven- 
tion of  access  of  sufficient  air  to  the  lungs,  he  makes 
what  are  called  frantic  efforts  at  inspiration,  bringing  into 
action  all  the  extraordinary  or  supplementary  muscles 
of  respiration ;  and  he  displays  the  same  violent  motor 
phenomena  when  he  is  in  a  state  of  frantic  terror. 

It  was  long  ago  pointed  out  by  Unzer  that  the  motor 
expressions  of  the  emotions  are  really  the  movements 
vhich  would  be  manifested  in  greater  degree  if  the  emo- 
tions and  desires  were  realized  in  action,  the  same 


3So  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

mechanical  external  machines  being  put  into  incomplete 
action,  and  the  emotions  being  a  nascent  excitation  of 
the  mental  states  which  would  accompany  the  acts. 
For  instance,  in  the  appetite  for  food,  the  gratification  of 
which  is  the  taking  of  food,  saliva  is  poured  into  the 
mouth  just  as  when  food  is  taken ;  in  the  desire  to  give 
suck,  the  satisfaction  of  which  is  the  relief  of  the  breasts 
by  the  discharge  of  the  milk  from  the  nipples  during 
suckling,  the  nipples  become  erect  and  there  is  a  flow 
of  milk  to  them.  In  the  desire  for  revenge,  the  gratifi- 
cation of  which  is  to  injure  the  offender,  the  natural 
weapons  of  offence  are  put  in  action,  animals  ejecting 
their  poison,  thrusting  out  their  stings,  attempting  to 
tear,  bite,  or  kick,  and  man  clenching  his  fist,  stamping 
his  feet,  and  gnashing  his  teeth,  as  he  would  do  if  he 
were  actually  taking  his  revenge.  In  terror,  the  satis- 
faction of  which  is  the  averting  of  a  great  impending 
danger,  the  struggles  for  preservation  are  seen  in  the 
starting  back,  the  shrinking,  the  sudden  standing  still, 
and  the  open  mouth  by  which  a  deep  inspiration  is 
taken  in  order  to  prepare  for  exertion.  In  shame,  the 
satisfaction  of  which  is  the  avoidance  of  the  glance  of 
the  person  whose  contempt  is  feared,  the  eyelids  are 
dropped  in  order  to  withdraw  oneself  as  much  as  pos- 
sible from  the  glance.  The  foreseeing  of  a  fall  from  a 
height  excites  us  involuntarily  to  hold  fast  as  we  should 
do  if  we  were  actually  falling.*  Mr.  Darwin  has  pointed 
out  that  in  a  large  number  of  animals,  belonging  to 
widely-different  classes,  an  erection  of  the  hair  or  fea- 
thers takes  place  under  the  influence  of  anger,  whereby 
the  animal  appears  larger  and  more  terrible  to  its  ene- 
mies or  rivals,  and  that  the  erection  is  almost  always 
accompanied  by  threatening  gestures — opening  of  the 
mouth,  uncovering  of  the  teeth,  spreading  out  of  the 

*  Unzer  and  Prochaska,  On  the  Functions  of  the  Ncrvoiu  System, 
p.  129.     S\d.  Soc.  Transl. 


VI.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     381 

wings  and  tails  by  birds,  and  by  the  utterance  of  harsh 
sounds.  In  those  animals  which  fight  with  their  teeth,  a 
savage  frame  of  mind  is  shown  by  the  drawing  back  of 
the  ears,  which  are  pressed  close  to  the  head,  this  being 
the  position  given  to  them  when  the  animals  actually 
fight,  in  order  to  prevent  them  from  being  seized  by 
their  antagonists.  The  retraction  of  the  lips  and  the 
uncovering  of  the  teeth  in  man  during  rage  is  probably 
a  remnant  or  survival  of  a  habit  acquired  during  prime- 
val times  when  his  semi-human  ancestors  fought  with 
their  teeth.* 

We  often  use  the  same  word  to  describe  the  quality 
of  an  emotion  which  we  use  to  describe  the  quality  of  a 
a  sensation ;  speaking,  for  example,  of  piercing  sorrow, 
of  soured  feeling,  of  corroding  grief,  of  revenge,  "sweet 
at  first,  but  bitter  ere  long,"  just  as  we  speak  of  a  sour, 
bitter,  or  sweet  taste ;  in  like  manner  we  use  the  same 
movement  to  express  an  emotion  which  we  use  to  pre- 
vent, lessen,  or  increase  a  sensation.  It  would  perhaps 
be  as  true  of  emotion  as  of  intellect  to  say  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  emotion  which  was  not  previously  in 
sense.  The  face  of  a  person  eagerly  pursuing  a  thought 
is  that  of  one  trying  eagerly  to  see  something  which  is 
difficult  to  be  seen,  pursuing  it,  as  it  were,  with  his  eye  ; 
the  expression  of  one  who  understands  not  a  proposi- 
tion made  is  like  that  of  a  deaf  man  who  hears  not  but 
tries  to  hear  what  is  said ;  the  expression  of  one  who 
expects  an  unwelcome  announcement  to  be  made  is  that 
of  one  who  shrinks  from  a  loud  sound,  as  of  a  gun  about 
to  be  fired  ;  the  expression  of  sneering  seems  very  much 
that  of  excluding  an  unpleasant  smell  from  the  nostrils, 
if  it  be  not,  as  is  perhaps  more  likely,  a  partial  snarl ; 
the  expression  of  disgust,  that  of  ejecting  from  the 
mouth  and  nostrils  something  offensive  ;  the  attitude  of 
one  who  repels  a  repugnant  suggestion  is  that  of  nascent 

*  Darwin.     The  Expression  of  the  Emotions. 


382  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

bodily  resistance  ;  the  attitude  of  mental  aversion,  that 
of  turning  away  bodily  from  a  disagreeable  object ;  the 
attitude  of  defiance,  that  of  one  who  stands  four  square 
to  all  the  winds  that  blow;  and  the  attitude  of  humility  is 
just  the  opposite.  Thus  it  appears  that  emotional  move- 
ments are  radically  determined  by,  if  they  are  not  more 
or  less  complete  reproductions  of,  such  movements  as 
have  been  produced  by  affections  of  the  senses,  or  have 
been  performed  for  some  definite  end  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  same  emotions :  they  are  survivals  of  past 
adjustments  to  the  social  environment. 

It  is  because  emotions  have  their  definite  expressional 
movements  that  there  is  an  art  of  discovering  the  pre- 
dominant mental  characteristics  of  men  in  the  lineaments 
of  the  face.  By  frequent  repetition  of  the  movements 
of  predominant  or  habitual  desires  or  emotions,  these 
mould  the  character  of  the  features  ;  whence  it  happens 
that  we  observe  sometimes  a  positive  assimilation  of 
features  from  similar  pursuits,  habits  and  sentiments,  as, 
for  example,  in  the  acquired  resemblance  which  has  been 
observed  to  be  brought  about  between  man  and  wife. 
The  attempt  to  repress  the  natural  expression  of  a  pre- 
dominant emotion,  as  when  a  person  bites  or  compresses 
his  lips  in  order  to  prevent  his  anger  finding  vent  in 
speech,  act,  or  features,  necessitates  a  muscular  action  of 
constraint  which,  though  it  hides  the  natural  language  of 
the  emotion,  is  sufficiently  significant  to  those  who  can 
interpret  the  more  complex  and  artificial  physiognomical 
signs.  Animals  have  their  leading  instincts  and  passions, 
in  the  gratification  of  which  they  find  their  greatest 
pleasure  ;  the  features  and  figures  being  moulded  to  per- 
form the  movements  which  gratify  these  leading  desires 
do  more  or  less  plainly  disclose  their  nature.  The  feline 
structure,  with  its  lithe  movements,  retractile  claws,  and 
soft  and  treacherous  tread,  declares  the  feline  nature. 
Those  who  make  a  study  of  human  faces  cannot 


vi  ]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     383 

fail  to  detect  often  in  them  resemblances  to  animal 
physiognomies :  one  face  will  call  to  mind  the  fox, 
another  the  tiger,  a  third  the  lion,  a  fourth  the  elephant ; 
and  any  one  who  makes  a  study  of  these  resemblances 
will  be  surprised  to  find  how  closely  these  animal-like 
peculiarities  of  features  are  often  accompanied  with 
corresponding  mental  characters.  Within  the  human 
there  is  an  animal  nature,  a  brute  brain  within  the 
man's,  and  in  some  persons  the  features  plainly  betray 
the  nature  of  the  special  animal. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  discovery  of  the  mind's 
construction  in  the  face  is  a  matter  of  individual  skill, 
and  not  one  which  can  be  taught ;  it  is  an  art  the 
principles  of  which  it  has  not  yet  been  possible  to  for- 
mulate ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  extraordinary 
skill  which  some  persons  acquire,  or  of  the  value 
of  the  information  which  those  who  have  the  re- 
quisite acuteness  and  experience  may  obtain  thereby. 
For,  as  Bacon  said,  "  the  lineaments  of  the  body  do 
disclose  the  disposition  and  inclination  of  the  mind  in 
general ;  but  the  motions  of  the  countenance  and  parts 
do  not  only  so,  but  do  farther  disclose  the  present 
humour  and  state  of  the  mind  or  will.  And  therefore  a 
number  of  subtle  persons  whose  eyes  do  dwell  upon  the 
faces  and  fashions  of  men,  do  well  know  the  advantage 
of  this  observation,  as  being  most  part  of  their  ability  ; 
neither  can  it  be  denied  but  that  it  is  a  great  discovery 
of  dissimulation  and  a  great  direction  in  business." 

Mr.  Darwin  has  formularized  three  principles  which 
appear  to  him  to  account  for  most  of  the  expressions  and 
gestures  involuntarily  used  by  man  and  the  lower  animals 
under  the  influence  of  emotions.  The  first  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  associated  serviceable  habits.  Certain  complex 
actions  are  directly  or  indirectly  useful  in  relieving  or 
gratifying  certain  sensations,  desires,  &c. ;  and  whenever 
the  same  state  of  mind  is  induced,  however  feebly,  there 


384  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

is  a  tendency  through  the  force  of  habit  and  association 
for  the  same  movements  to  be  performed,  though  they 
may  not  then  be  of  the  least  use.  Some  of  these  move- 
ments may  be  partially  repressed  by  the  will,  and  the 
muscles  which  are  least  under  the  control  of  the  will  are 
then  most  liable  to  act,  the  movements  caused  by  them 
being  recognised  as  expressive.  In  other  cases  the  re- 
pression of  one  movement  may  necessitate  other  mus- 
cular contractions  which,  when  their  aim  is  recognised, 
will  likewise  be  expressive.  The  second  principle  he 
calls  the  principle  of  antithesis.  When  there  is  produced 
a  directly  opposite  state  of  mind  to  that  expressed  by 
certain  habitual  movements  which  were  once  or  are  still 
serviceable,  there  is  a  strong  and  involuntary  tendency 
to  the  performance  of  movements  of  a  directly  opposite 
nature,  though  these  may  not  be  of  the  least  use.  Such 
movements  are  in  some  cases  highly  expressive.  The 
third  principle  is  the  so-called  direct  action  of  the 
nervous  system.  When  the  sensorium  is  strongly  ex- 
cited, nerve-force  is  generated  in  excess,  and  must  be 
discharged,  the  channels  of  discharge  being  determined 
by  the  connection  of  the  nerve-cells  and  nerve-fibres,  and 
partly  only  by  habit.  The  effects  thus  produced  are 
recognised  often  as  expressive.  It  is  natural  to  suppose 
that  when  there  is  a  large  generation  of  nerve-force  in 
one  centre,  the  excess  of  that  which  can  readily  be  dis- 
charged by  the  nerve-fibres  connected  therewith  will 
overflow,  pass  to  neighbouring  interconnected  nerve- 
centres,  and  be  discharged  in  molecular  movements 
along  the  nerve-fibres  proceeding  from  them. 

But  emotions  have  other  channels  of  discharge  besides 
muscular  movements.  They  may  be  expended  in  action 
upon  the  secretions,  or  in  nutritive  changes,  or  in  action 
upon  the  ideational  centres.  When  emotional  excite- 
ment is  not  discharged  by  motor  channels  it  is  apt  to 
affect  the  internal  viscera  ;  it  produces  a  disturbance  or 


vi.]     THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     385 

uriea.se  of  them,  which  may  increase  in  degree  to  dis- 
ease;  the  principal  channel  through  which  this  takes 
place  being  the  complex  vagus  nerve,  which  regulates 
the  force  and  rapidity  of  the  heart's  beats  and  the  fre- 
quency of  respirations,  and  influences  to  a  great  extent 
the  secretions  and  movements  of  the  stomach  and  intes- 
tines. It  is  through  it  that  grief  strikes  the  heart,  getting 
its  name  of  heartrending,  and  through  it  that  terror 
affects  violently  the  movements  of  the  heart  and  of 
respiration  ;  through  it  that  the  bated  breath  of  suspense, 
the  nausea  of  disgust,  and  the  impaired  digestion  of 
sorrow  are  produced;  and  through  it  that  the  bowels 
yearn  in  sympathy.  A  strong  emotion,  like  an  electric 
shock  through  the  vagus,  may  cause  sudden  death  by 
paralyzing  the  heart,  just  as  it  may  cause  paralysis  or 
convulsions  of  voluntary  muscles. 

Emotion  will  often  increase,  lessen,  or  alter  a  secre- 
tion, bidding  the  tears  flow,  perverting  the  bile,  mak- 
ing the  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth ;  and 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  there  is  a  single  act 
of  nutrition  which  emotion  may  not  affect,  inspiring 
it  with  energy  or  infecting  it  with  feebleness,  accord- 
ing to  its  pleasant  or  painful  nature,  and  so  aiding 
or  hindering  recovery  from  disease.  It  is  certain 
that  joy  or  hope  exerts  an  animating  effect  upon  the 
bodily  life,  quiet  and  equable  when  moderate,  but,  when 
stronger,  evinced  in  the  brilliancy  of  the  eye,  in  the 
quickened  pulse  and  breathing,  in  an  inclination  to  laugh 
and  sing ;  grief  or  other  depressing  passion  has  an  oppo- 
site effect,  relaxing  the  arteries,  enfeebling  the  heart, 
making  the  eye  dull,  impeding  digestion,  and  producing 
an  inclination  to  sigh  or  weep.  Herein  we  perceive  a 
sufficient  reason  of  the  disease  in  an  organ  which  is 
sometimes  the  result  of  a  prolonged  depressing  passion, 
especially  of  depression  in  its  highest  degree — hopeless- 
ness. And  because  the  weak  organ  is  ever  the  sufferer, 


386  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

because  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  be  weak  is  to  be  miser- 
able, the  effect  of  a  passion  is  generally  felt  in  the 
affected  organ  by  one  who  is  the  subject  of  any  local 
idiosyncracy ;  it  sympathises  more  easily  and  more 
acutely  with  the  centric  commotion  ;  wherefore  one  who 
has  a  weak  organ  should  refrain  from  passion,  if  he 
would  live  long.  Passion,  in  its  essential  nature,  be- 
tokens the  sympathy  of  the  whole  nervous  system  of 
the  organic  and  animal  life ;  and  a  great  disposition  to 
passion  means  a  great  susceptibility  to  such  sympathy. 
Some  of  the  terms  which  are  used  to  describe  emotional 
states,  such  as  splenetic,  melancholy,  cordial,  and  such 
figurative  expressions  as  pallid  fear,  pining  love,  envy 
wan,  faded  care,  livid  horror,  green-eyed  jealousy,  grim- 
visaged  despair,  and  the  like,  testify  by  their  origin  to  a 
general  recognition  of  the  influence  of  the  emotions  upon 
the  bodily  functions  ;  and  it  is  for  science  now  to  trace 
out  and  classify  the  exact  sequences  of  phenomena  which 
have  long  been  familiar  in  household  words.* 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  an  emotion 
may  be  diverted  from  one  into  another  of  its  channels 
of  expression.  A  person  who  is  grossly  insulted  may 
vent  his  anger  either  in  the  quick  movements  of  a  reta- 
liating blow,  or  in  useless  tears  and  lamentations,  or  in 
the  ideational  activity  of  devising  plans  of  future  revenge 
or  of  calling  up  Christian  ideas  of  forgiveness  or  philo- 
sophical ideas  of  indifference.  If  the  emotion  be  not 
discharged  in  outward  bodily  activity  or  in  suitable 
inward  mental  action,  it  will  act  upon  the  internal  viscera 
and  derange  their  functions ;  sorrow  is  soon  discharged 
by  passionate  wailing  and  weeping  ;  it  is  the  grief  which 
does  not  speak  that  whispers  the  overfraught  heart  and 

*  Nearly  all  these  figurative  expressions  are  made  use  of  in  a  few 
lines  by  Gray,  who  was  skilful  and  industrious  in  culling  apt  phrases 
from  the  works  of  his  predecessors,  in  his  Ode  on  a  Distant  View  of 
Eton  College, 


vi.  J     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     387 

bids  it  break.  But  it  is  not  a  good  use  to  make  of  emo- 
tional energy  to  allow  it  to  go  to  waste  by  discharging 
itself  outwardly  in  useless  wailing,  or  to  do  harm  by  dis- 
charging itself  Inwardly  in  derangement  of  the  organic 
functions ;  it  should  be  the  aim  of  mental  culture  to 
retain  it  within  the  sphere  of  the  intellectual  life,  and 
so  to  get  the  benefit  of  it  in  the  supply  of  the  interest 
and  energy  required  for  effective  volition.  A  wise  man 
soon  perceives  that  he  owes  more  in  self-culture  and 
worldly  success  to  the  disappointments  and  griefs  which 
he  has  suffered  than  to  the  triumphs  and  joys  which  he 
has  had. 

There  is  another  consideration  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count with  regard  to  our  emotions.  When  we  fix  the 
countenance  in  the  expression,  or  the  body  in  the 
attitude,  which  any  passion  naturally  occasions,  it  is 
certain  that  we  acquire  in  some  degree  that  passion  ; 
and  if  we  try,  while  the  features  are  fixed  in  the  pattern 
of  one  emotion,  to  call  up  in  the  mind  a  quite  different 
one,  we  shall  find  it  impossible  to  do  so.  There  is  an 
obvious  fallacy  in  making  the  experiment,  as  in  order  to 
produce  the  suitable  movements  of  expression  we  are 
compelled  to  imagine  the  passion  ;  but  after  allowance 
has  been  made  for  this  cause  of  error,  there  remains 
sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  the  emotion  is  intensified 
and  made  definite  by  the  bodily  action.  In  fact,  as  we 
complete  our  intellectual  activity  by  the  participation  of 
the  sensory  centres,  thereby  rendering  our  abstract  ideas 
definite  through  a  sensory  representation  of  them ;  or 
rather  as  our  reasoning  powers  are  developed  by  em- 
bodiment of  thoughts  in  words  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  speech ;  so  in  our  emotional  life  any  particular 
passion  is  rendered  stronger  and  more  distinct  by  the 
existence  of  those  bodily  states  which  it  naturally  pro- 
duces, and  which  in  turn,  when  otherwise  produced,  tend 
to  engender  it  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  each 


388  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

passion  which  is  special  in  kind  has  its  special  bodily 
expression  ;  this  being  truly  an  essential  part  of  it.  Mr. 
Braid  found,  by  experiment  on  patients  whom  he  had 
put  in  that  state  of  artificial  somnambulism  which  he 
described  as  hypnotism^  that  by  inducing  attitudes  of 
body  natural  to  certain  passions  he  could  excite  those 
passions.  If  the  spine  and  legs  were  straightened  and 
the  head  thrown  slightly  back,  the  countenance  assumed 
an  expression  of  lofty  pride  ;  if  the  limbs  and  body  were 
slightly  flexed  and  the  head  bent  forward,  a  feeling  of 
great  humility  took  its  place ;  if  the  fist  were  doubled 
and  the  arm  raised,  the  idea  of  fighting  was  excited  ;  if 
the  person  were  put  on  his  knees,  and  his  hands  clasped, 
his  countenance  and  actions  bespoke  profound  devotion. 
We  perceive,  then,  how  close  is  the  sympathy  or  con- 
nection between  the  bodily  system  and  the  emotional  or 
affective  life  which  supplies  the  habitual  impulsion  to 
action ;  while  the  intellectual  life  which,  as  deliberative 
or  regulative,  controls  and  directs  the  activity  of  the 
individual,  has  the  closest  relations  with  the  senses. 
From  want  of  attention  to  the  essential  intervention  of 
the  whole  of  the  bodily  in  the  mental  life — a  neglect 
springing  from  the  unjustifiable  contempt  of  the  body 
inherited  from  the  theologists — the  physical  expressions 
of  our  mental  states  have  not  been  studied  with  the  care 
and  industry  which  their  significance  deserves.  As  the 
Indian  savage  surely  tracks  the  footsteps  of  his  enemy 
where  the  untrained  eye  can  see  no  trace;  or  as  the 
American  hunter,  by  careful  observation  of  the  ap- 
pearances of  the  trees,  guides  himself  safely  through 
pathless  forests  in  which  the  greatest  philosopher  would 
lose  his  way  and  perish;  so  it  is  probable  that  any 
competent  observer  who  devoted  himself  to  study  scien- 
tifically, with  close  and  patient  attention,  the  manners  of 
a  large  number  of  persons,  and  the  different  expressions 
of  their  features,  their  gestures,  and  their  actions,  might 


vi.]      THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  A  WEC  7  70NS  OF  MIND.     389 

discover  a  certain  clue  to  their  character,  and  be  able  to 
read  off  with  ease  their  feelings  and  desires.  Our  atten- 
tion is  distracted  by  the  number  of  our  senses,  so  that 
no  one  of  them  receives  half  the  development  of  which 
it  is  capable. 

It  was  the  recognition  of  the  intimate  connexion 
and  mutual  reaction  between  the  passions  and  the 
bodily  life  that  moved  Bichat  to  locate  them,  as  the 
ancients  did  and  in  common  language  is  now  sometimes 
done,  in  the  organs  of  the  organic  life.  But  although 
there  was  in  this  view  the  just  acknowledgment  of  a 
truth,  it  was  only  of  part  of  a  truth ;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  not  the  organs  of  the  organic  life  only,  but  those 
of  the  animal  life  also,  are  concerned  in  the  expression 
and  production  of  passion ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
the  feeling  of  the  passion  unquestionably  takes  place  in 
the  brain.  It  is  the  display  of  its  organic  sympathies. 
Consequently  it  is  found  that,  as  the  effect  of  a  depress- 
ing passion  is  felt  by  the  victim  of  a  local  idiosyncrasy 
in  his  weak  organ,  so  inversely  the  effect  of  a  weak  or 
diseased  organ  is  felt  in  the  brain  by  an  irritability  or 
disposition  to  passion,  a  disturbance  of  the  psychical 
tone — in  fact,  by  a  state  of  unease,  which  may  become 
a  state  of  disease,  of  mind,  if  it  go  far  enough.  The 
phenomena  of  insanity  furnish  the  best  illustrations  of 
this  sympathetic  interaction. 

The  study  of  disordered  emotions  will  naturally  find 
a  place  afterwards,  when  I  come  to  treat  of  the  patho- 
logy of  mind.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  disordered 
emotion  may  act  upon  the  animal  life,  the  organic  life, 
and  the  intellectual  life.  It  may  grave  itself  in  the 
lineamonts  of  the  countenance,  or  declare  itself  in  the 
habit  of  the  body ;  it  may  initiate  or  aggravate  organic 
disease,  producing,  according  to  its  duration,  a  transient 
or  lasting  derangement ;  and  it  may  temporarily  obscure, 
or  permanently  vitiate,  the  intelligence.  When  the 
18 


390  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

emotions  are  disordered,  as  they  are  particularly  in  some 
forms  of  insanity,  and  generally  at  the  commencement 
of  insanity,  pleasure  is  felt  from  objects  and  events 
which  should  naturally  excite  pain,  and  pain  from  causes 
which  should  naturally  occasion  pleasure  in  a  healthy 
mind  :  scenes  of  disorder,  excess  and  violence  are  grate- 
ful to  the  perverted  feelings  ;  order  and  moderation  are 
irritating  and  repugnant  Instead  of  feeling  and  re- 
sponding to  those  relations  in  the  social  environment 
which  would  promote  his  well-being  and  development, 
as  in  health  he  does,  the  degenerate  individual  exhibits 
an  affinity  for  those  relations  which  are  hostile  to  his 
well-being,  increase  his  degeneration,  and  tend  to  bring 
about  his  extinction. 

It  may  be  thought,  perhaps,  that  it  would  not  be 
amiss  if  something  were  now  said  of  the  difference  be- 
tween passion  and  emotion,  inasmuch  as  the  terms  have 
hitherto  been  used  almost  indifferently.  This,  however, 
is  scarcely  necessary  in  dealing  only  with  their  general 
nature,  which  is  fundamentally  the  same ;  every  so-called 
emotion,  when  carried  to  a  certain  pitch,  becomes  a  veri- 
table passion.  If  it  were  thought  well  to  distinguish 
them  in  a  special  analysis  of  the  particular  emotions,  as 
it  doubtless  would  be,  the  ground  of  distinction  would 
be  in  the  egoistic  or  altruistic  character  of  them — names 
by  which  Comte  distinguished  respectively  those  feelings 
which  have  entire  reference  to  self  and  those  which  have 
reference  to  the  good  of  others.  The  passions,  in  fact, 
lie  much  nearer  to  the  fundamental  instincts  or  desires 
than  do  the  emotions ;  the  instinct  or  sensational  impulse 
to  which  has  been  added  a  consciousness  of  its  aim  and 
of  the  means  of  its  gratification  becoming  a  passion. 

Spinoza,  whose  admirable  account  of  the  passions 
will  not  easily  be  surpassed,  only  recognises  three 
primitive  passions,  on  the  basis  of  which  all  others  are 
founded — joy,  sorrow,  and  desire,  (a)  Desire,  he  says, 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     391 

is  the  very  nature  or  essence  of  the  individual,  whence 
it  is  that  the  joy  or  sorrow  of  each  individual  differs  from 
that  of  another  as  the  nature  or  essence  of  one  differs  from 
that  of  another,  (b)  Joy  is  the  passage  from  a  less  de- 
gree of  perfection  to  a  greater  degree  of  perfection,  and 
accompanies,  therefore,  all  actions  that  are  called  good, 
(c)  Sorrow  is  the  passage  from  a  greater  degree  of  per- 
fection to  a  less  degree  of  perfection,  and  accompanies 
all  acts  that  are  called  evil.  However,  we  perceive  now, 
by  the  light  of  knowledge  acquired  since  Spinoza's  time, 
that  he  has  not  carried  his  analysis  down  to  the  physio- 
logical foundations  of  the  passions. 

From  what  has  gone  before,  it  will  plainly  appear  im- 
possible to  deal  satisfactorily  with  the  emotions  by  con- 
sidering them  only  as  accomplished  facts,  and  grouping 
them  according  to  their  characters  as  we  observe  them 
in  an  adult  person  of  ordinary  cultivation.  The  psycho- 
logical method  fails  us  entirely,  as  we  are  driven  by  it 
to  study  emotion  under  hopeless  disadvantage ;  we  are 
constrained  to  examine  the  complexity  of  an  advanced 
development  instead  of  following  up,  as  is  the  true 
method,  the  genesis  of  emotion  or  the  plan  of  its  de- 
velopment In  the  classification  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
the  study  of  its  plan  of  development  is  now  acknow- 
ledged to  be  the  only  valid  method  of  determining  the 
true  relations  between  one  animal  and  another :  in  like 
manner  the  interpretation  of  the  phenomena  of  mind 
cannot  be  rightly  grounded  except  on  an  analysis  of 
their  development  Whosoever  aspires  to  give  an  ade- 
quate account  of  the  emotions  should  devote  himself, 
then,  to  a  laborious  investigation  of  their  simplest  mani- 
festations in  the  higher  members  of  the  animal  king- 
dom ;  to  the  study  of  the  different  grades  of  their 
evolution  in  the  savage  and  the  civilized  person,  in  the 
child  and  the  adult,  the  woman  and  the  man,  the  idiot 
and  him  who  is  in  his  right  mind ;  and  to  the  patient 


392  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

observation  of  their  bodily  conditions,  and  the  careful 
delineation  of  their  special  bodily  expressions.  He 
must  patiently  unfold  that  progressive  specialization  and 
increasing  complexity  which  prevail  here  as  in  every 
other  department  of  organic  development 

Like  as  simple  ideas  are  blended  or  coalesce  into  duplex 
and  complex  ideas,  and  are  connected  in  groups  and  series 
so  that,  by  complex  development,  a  character  is  formed* 
so  are  the  fee -lings  belonging  to  the  ideas,  and  the  desires 
accompanying  them,  blended  and  grouped  in  a  corre- 
sponding complexity,  and  inclinations  or  disinclinations 
of  every  variety  and  complexity  are  thus  formed  as  a 
part  of  the  character.  Again,  the  desire  naturally  at- 
taching to  a  certain  aim  is  often  transferred  after  a  time 
to  the  means  by  which  that  aim  is  attained,  so  that 
there  ensue  in  this  way  manifold  secondary  formations  : 
the  end  of  wealth  is  to  give  enjoyment  and  comfort,  but 
how  often  does  a  passion  for  the  means  oversway  the 
end  !  By  looking  to  a  desirable  end,  an  act  naturally 
very  distasteful,  but  which  is  necessary  as  means,  may, 
by  habituation,  be  rendered  indifferent  or  even  pleasing; 
and  some  consummate  scoundrels  are  thus  gradually 
fashioned,  themselves  unaware  of  the  grievous  issue  in 
which  many  slight  effects  have  insensibly  culminated.* 
Falsehood  is  sometimes  the  shortest  and  easiest  way  of 

*  Nemo  rfpente  fuit  turpissimus  is  really  the  expression  of  the 
physical  nature  of  the  growth  of  character. 
"Custom        .... 

Constrains  e'en  stubborn  Nature  to  obey  j 
Whom  dispossessing  oft,  he  doth  essay 
To  govern  in  her  right ;  and  with  a  pace 
So  soft  and  gentle  does  he  win  his  way, 
That  she  unawares  is  caught  in  his  embrace, 
And  tho'  deflowered  and  thralled  nought  feels  her  foul  disgrace." 
Stanza  of  Gilbert  West,  quoted  by  Coleridge  in  his 
Biographia  Lileraria. 


VI.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     393 

attaining  an  end,  but  the  falsehood  which  succeeds 
avenges  itself  inevitably  in  the  deterioration  of  character 
which  it  initiates  or  marks ;  the  individual  who  habitu- 
ally practises  it  comes  to  love  it  for  its  own  sake,  not  as 
a  means  but  as  an  end ;  false  to  others,  he  is  false  to 
himself  in  discernment,  and  is  a  known  liar  before  he 
ever  suspects  that  he  is  thought  so. 

To  make  a  profound  study  of  the  emotions  one  ought 
to  go  very  far  back  and  begin  with  the  fundamental 
instincts  or  desires — certainly  as  far  back  as  that  of  self- 
preservation  with  the  emotions  of  self-defence  which  it 
entails,  and  that  of  propagation  with  the  love  of  offspring 
which  is  so  nearly  connected  with  it,  and  endeavour 
to  follow  them  from  their  most  simple  manifestations 
through  their  most  complex  evolutions.  Of  their  origin 
we  can  give  no  further  account  than  that  they  are  pro- 
perties of  organic  being ;  their  ends,  and  the  means  to 
their  ends,  are  not  taught  by  experience,  but  are  pre- 
existent  in  their  nature;  they  witness  to  a  pre-ordained 
reciprocal  adaptation  betjveen  organic  being  and  the 
nature  around  it  whence  it  is  derived  and  to  which  it 
returns.  Man  cannot  help  feeling  dimly  through  these 
instincts  of  self  in  their  relations  to  the  not-self  that  there 
is  something  beyond  him,  which  was  before  he  is  and 
will  continue  after  he  no  longer  is,  of  which  his  being  is 
but  a  passing  phase ;  something,  therefore,  in  him,  as  a 
transitory  show  of  nature  inspired  by  these  instincts,  of 
which  no  interrogation  of  self-consciousness  will  ever 
suffice  to  give  an  adequate  account ;  something  "  which 
cometh  from  afar."  Hence  the  strange  glamour  sur- 
rounding the  overmastering  passion  of  love ;  it  is  the 
mysterious  instinct  of  universal  nature  thrilling  through 
his  nature,  and  is  truly  an  enchantment ;  the  individual 
is  possessed  by  it,  being  transported  out  of  the  prosaic 
region  of  facts  into  a  sort  of  ecstasy.  It  is  nature's  way 
of  inveigling  man  into  the  propagation  of  his  kind. 


394  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

however  little  wisdom  he  may  see  in  continuing  the  tale 
of  human  misery  upon  earth.  Hence  also  the  expansive 
ardour  which  inspires  youth  with  faith  and  enthusiasm 
that  are  sadly  sphered  by  age.  I  know  not  whether  the 
instinct  of  propagation  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  in 
some  sort  a  secondary  display  of  the  self- conservative 
instinct,  for  it  is  certain  that  people  proceed  to  indulge 
it  as  a  pure  self-gratification,  not  with  any  design  of 
begetting  heirs  of  immortality.  When  an  organic  being 
has  reached  its  fulness  of  life,  and  assimilation  exceeds 
expenditure,  it  gives  off  in  an  act  of  sensual  gratification 
a  part  of  itself  endowed  with  the  same  self-conservative 
instinct,  and  so  strives  by  propagating  itself  through 
time  to  cheat  death. 

The  intrinsic  sense  of  or  longing  for  the  sustenance  of 
life,  which  is  translated  into  the  belief  of  immortality, 
seems  to  me  to  be  an  evolution  of  the  instinct  of  propaga- 
tion in  consciousness,  and  to  spring  fundamentally  from 
the  self-conservative  impulse.  Certainly  the  love  of  life 
and  the  fear  of  death  are  manifestations  of  the  self-con- 
servative instinct  in  consciousness.  Hope  and  fear  may 
be  called  expectant  ideas,  that  is,  ideas  having  reference  to 
the  future,  into  which  a  large  emotional  element  enters, 
based,  in  the  former,  upon  a  desire  for  that  which  pro- 
motes the  well-being,  or  fundamentally  the  life,  and 
increases  the  power,  of  self,  and,  in  the  latter,  upon  a 
desire  to  escape  that  which  is  hurtful  to  self,  threatening 
its  well-being  or  life,  lessening  its  power,  and  so  taking 
part  with  death.  Now  hope  acts  like  joy  on  the  organic 
structures,  producing  the  same  animating  effects  in  less 
degree  ;  fear,  on  the  other  hand,  produces  in  the  organic 
structures  the  same  destructive  changes,  in  a  nascent 
form,  as  would  be  produced  by  actual  experience  of  the 
danger  feared  ;  threatening  the  organic  life,  the  organs 
of  which  minister  to  the  self-preservation,  and  by  their 
sympathetic  communion  with  the  brain — their  intimate 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     395 

physiological  consensus  with  it — occasion  the  instinct 
Joy  and  life  go  hand-in-hand  on  the  upward  path,  as 
pain  and  death  go  together  on  the  downward  path. 
Therefore,  if  Heaven  and  Hell  were  inventions,  they 
would  still  have  been  good  inventions,  as  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  fundamental  instincts  of  being  to  attract  it  to 
the  narrow  path  of  development,  and  to  avert  it  from  the 
broad  path  of  degeneration.  Here,  again,  we  are  brought 
back  to  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  which  runs  through 
all  the  special  and  complex  evolutions  of  our  hopes  and 
fears.  Note  in  this  relation  how  the  word  apprehend, 
which  originally  meant  to  lay  hold  of,  and  afterwards  to 
grasp  mentally,  has  now  come  to  mean  an  expectant 
idea  with  fear — an  apprehension. 

Continuing  to  trace  the  evolution  of  the  instincts  in  the 
mental  life,  we  might  go  on  to  point  out  how  fear  first  in- 
vented the  gods,  the  unknown  powers  that  inflicted  suffer- 
ings the  causes  of  which  were  beyond  human  ken,  whom  it 
was  necessary  to  propitiate  in  a  spirit  of  abject  humility  by 
prayers  and  sacrifices.  From  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion, translated  into  consciousness,  springs  the  instinctive 
passion  of  self-defence  by  means  of  the  natural  weapons, 
mental  and  bodily,  and,  as  secondary  conceptions  and 
desires,  rage,  malignity,  and  the  desire  of  revenge  by  the 
most  skilful  use  of  the  means  that  can  be  brought  into  play 
are  connected  with  it  From  the  sexual  instinct  springs  not 
only  the  complex  emotion  of  love,  as  already  mentioned, 
but  jealousy,  and  we  observe  a  further  development  of  it 
in  the  love  of  offspring  which  is  so  strongly  displayed  in 
the  blind  brooding  of  animals.  As  in  the  progress  of 
organic  evolution  from  animal  to  man  there  has  been  an 
ascent  from  the  sensuous  to  the  intellectual,  so  in  the 
sphere  of  the  affective  life  there  has  been  a  progress  from 
the  propensities  to  the  sentiments — from  the  individual 
to  the  social  unit  The  instincts  accordingly  have  their 
related  conceptions  and  feelings  .which,  having  been 


396  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

originally  evolved  from  them,  revolve,  as  it  were,  round 
them,  and  are  directed  to  the  attainment  of  their  aim ; 
so  that  the  bias  of  a  man's  nature  is  determined  by  his 
instincts,  and  he  has  a  tendency,  however  many  and 
moral  his  higher  conceptions,  to  lean  to  their  side. 

The  highest  emotional  feeling  to  which  mankind  has 
yet  attained  is  the  moral  feeling  or  sense,  and  science  is 
now  going  about  to  trace  it  as  an  acquisition  by  the 
race.  The  old  question  of  the  origin  of  evil,  on  the 
discussion  of  which  metaphysicians  spent  so  much  fruit- 
less labour,  was  not  the  right  question  after  all ;  the  right 
question  for  discussion  is  the  origin  of  good.  Not  how 
evil  but  how  good  was  acquired  is  the  problem  to  be 
solved.  The  internal  organic  adaptations  which  have 
taken  place  in  correspondence  with  the  external  condi- 
tions of  social  existence  have  been  propagated  through 
generations,  and  that  which  was  a  gradual  acquisition  by 
the  ancestors  has  become  more  or  less  an  innate  endow- 
ment of  the  offspring.  In  this  way,  which  is,  so  far  as 
we  know,  the  way  everlasting  of  mental  evolution,  has 
been  formed  the  potentiality  of  a  moral  sense.  It  will 
be  understood  of  course  that  in  the  environing  medium 
to  which  internal  adaptation  takes  place  human  nature 
as  well  as  physical  nature  is  included ;  we  have  to 
take  account  in  fact  of  the  social  medium,  for  it  is  as 
a  unit  in  the  social  organism  that  the  individual  has 
attained  by  degrees  through  the  course  of  ages  to  a  moral 
sense  and  to  his  highest  emotions  and  intellectual 
faculties.  As  man  gets  a  knowledge  of  physical  nature 
in  order  to  act  upon  or  modify  it  to  his  profit,  his  prac- 
tical wants  originating  science,  his  necessity  being  the 
mother  of  his  invention,  so  by  study  of  his  relations  to 
human  nature  and  corresponding  action  thereto  he  has 
attained  to  social  intelligence  and  feelings,  the  highest  of 
which  feeling  is  moral  feeling.  He  rises  gradually  to 
comprehend  that  he  is  a  unit  in  a  complex  social 


VI.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     397 

organism,  in  which  if  one  member  suffers  all  members 
suffer  with  it,  and  in  which  the  highest  good  of  the  whole 
and  of  the  parts  is  one. 

The  larger,  more  numerous  and  complex  cerebral  con- 
volutions which  distinguish  the  brain  of  a  civilized  person 
from  that  of  a  savage  correspond  with  the  capacities  of  the 
exalted  ideas  of  justice,  virtue,  mercy,  love  which  the  savage 
has  not  and  cannot  have ;  these  demand  for  their  full  func- 
tion and  reproduce  in  their  function  the  higher  and  more 
varied  activity  through  which  they  were  first  developed 
in  the  race,  displaying  the  kind  of  function  which  has  de- 
termined, and  is  embodied  in,  the  structure ;  the  vesicular 
neurine  has  increased  in  quantity  ai  .d  quality,  and  the 
function  of  the  more  highly  endowed  structure  is  to  dis- 
play that  intelligence  and  moral  feeling  which  it  uncon- 
sciously embodies.  The  order  of  events  is  presumably 
in  this  wise  :  by  virtue  of  its  fundamental  adaptive  pro- 
perty as  organic  matter,  nerve-element  responds  to  envi- 
roning relations  by  definite  action;  this  action,  when 
repeated,  determines  structure ;  and  thus  by  degrees 
new  structure,  or — what  it  really  is — a  new  organ,  is 
formed,  which  embodies  in  its  substance  and  displays 
in  its  function  the  countless  generalizations,  so  to  speak, 
or  ingredients  of  experience,  which  it  has  gained  from 
past  and  contributes  to  present  stimulation.  Function 
makes  capacity ;  and  what  I  wish  to  make  clear  is  that 
in  the  actual  substance  of  the  new  structure  which 
acquired  capacity  implies,  are  concentrated  and  em- 
bodied the  multitudinous  adapted  responses  to  manifold 
impressions,  simultaneous  and  successive,  through  which 
the  growth  and  development  of  the  structure  have  taken 
place.  It  is,  as  it  were,  an  abstract  of  past  experiences 
and  adjustments,  an  embodied  complexity  of  co-ordina- 
tions. The  only  way  by  which  the  low  savage  could  be 
raised  to  the  capacity  of  ideas  and  feelings  belonging 
to  the  highest  reach  of  human  evolution  would  be  by 


398  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAI-. 

cultivation  continued  through  many  generations ;  it  would 
be  necessary  that  he  should  undergo  a  gradual  process 
of  humanization  before  he  could  attain  to  the  capacity 
of  civilization.  Certainly  it  does  not  appear  likely  that  he 
will  survive  the  process  as  it  has  been  undertaken  and 
carried  out  by  the  united  gospels  of  commerce  and  of 
Christianity ;  but  there  is  no  need  to  be  sorry  on  that 
account,  for  why  should  we  labour  to  carry  on  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  race  by  slow  and  tedious  exaltation  of  the 
lowest  specimens  when  we  have  higher  specimens  at 
han  1  available  for  the  purpose? 

Here  may  fitly  be  asked  the  pertinent  question — 
Whence  is  derived  the  beginning  or  the  first  shoot  of  a 
moral  sense?  The  answer  which  may  be  thought  not 
so  fit,  but  which  nevertheless  I  propose  to  make,  is  that 
the  root  of  the  moral  sense  must  be  sought  in  the  instinct 
of  propagation.  By  the  gratification  of  this  instinct, 
notwithstanding  that  it  is  an  act  of  pure  self-indulgence, 
the  individual  does  not  appropriate  matter  to  himself  and 
increase,  but  dissipates  energy,  giving  off  from  himself 
something  which  goes  to  propagate  the  species  ;  the  aim 
of  the  instinct  being  not  to  benefit  the  individual — for 
though  its  indulgence  gratifies  him  he  is  the  less  by  his 
gratification — but  to  inveigle  him  through  self-gratification 
to  continue  the  kind;  it  is  not  appropriative  but  distri- 
butive, not  egoistic,  so  to  speak,  but  altruistic.  We  have 
already  had  occasion  to  take  note  of  the  transforming 
effect  which  it  produces  upon  the  mental  functions  so 
soon  as  it  declares  itself  in  them,  and  it  is  obvious  that,  in 
animals  in  which  the  sexes  are  separate,  its  gratification 
involves  at  the  least  a  temporary  association  of  two 
individuals,  and  so  initiates  or  marks  an  advance  to- 
wards the  social  state.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  again  that 
the  affection  which  is  entertained  for  the  product  of  its 
activity  and  the  constant  and  special  care  needed  by  the 
offspring  bring  into  play  the  maternal  or  paternal  instinct, 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF MIXD.     399 

thus  modifying  the  primal  instinct  of  self-preservation  and 
carrying  the  individual  at  once  out  of  himself  into  feeling 
for  another,  even  though  it  be  only  a  little  way ;  he  passes 
at  any  rate  out  of  the  circle  of  individual  selfishness  into 
the  larger  circle  of  family  selfishness.  Now  family  feeling, 
as  Comte  pointed  out,  is  the  foundation  of  social  feeling  ; 
to  cease  to  be  governed  entirely  by  personal  instincts, 
and  to  begin  to  conform  to  an  environment  or  external 
order  of  which  individuals  constitute  a  part,  is  to  begin 
to  be  subject  to  social  or  rudely  moral  discipline,  and  to 
acquire  a  social  or  rudely  moral  feeling. 

As  the  necessities  of  life  compelled  families  to  dwell 
together  in  some  kind  of  unity  the  tribe  was  formed,  and 
the  interest  and  sympathies  of  the  individual  became  one 
with  those  of  his  tribe  ;  he  passed  from  the  circle  of  family 
selfishness  into  the  larger  circle  of  tribal  selfishness  ;  his 
nearest  approach  to  a  moral  feeling  was  a  tribal  feeling. 
It  was  a  momentous  epoch,  as  has  been  remarked,  in  the 
development  of  the  human  race  when  it  first  became  more 
or  less  clearly  conscious  that  its  maintenance  and  welfare 
depended  upon  association,  for  it  could  not  but  be  that 
a  primitive  social  feeling  must  spring  from  the  relations 
of  the  individual  to  the  social  medium.  The  rudest  associa- 
tion of  men  for  the  purposes  of  attack  or  defence  in  war 
must  have  led  to  the  development  of  certain  altruistic 
virtues  in  those  who  formed  the  fighting  body;  they 
could  not  otherwise  have  held  together.  The  subse- 
quent more  complex  associations  of  men  would  pre- 
sumably after  a  time  engender  a  higher  public  moral 
feeling,  offences  against  the  community  being  visited 
with  severe  punishment 

Among  savages  now,  as  was  the  case  everywhere 
among  mankind  in  the  pre-moral  ages,  the  ideas  of 
immorality  and  criminality  do  not  exist;  if  one  is 
injured  by  another  he  takes  his  revenge,  whatever  that 
may  be,  and  when  he  has  done  that  he  is  satisfied. 


400  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

It  is  an  affair  of  private  vengeance  with  which  public 
morality  is  not  concerned.  A  life  for  a  life  taken, 
or  adequate  compensation  for  it,  and  then,  as  Ajax  said 
(Iliad,  ix.  632 — 636),  "The  murderer  remains  among  his 
own  people,  having  paid  a  large  compensation,  and  the 
injured  person,  having  been  compensated,  is  appeased 
and  abandons  his  resentment."  The  Greek  word  used 
for  compensation  is  iroivi),  from  which  are  derived  the 
Lain/ov/a,  the  French  prine,  and  the  English  penal;  the 
idea  of  punishment  having  plainly  sprung  from  the  idea 
of  compensation.  For  with  the  Greeks,  as  with  other 
nations,  when  they  became  more  civilized  the  enforce- 
ment of  retribution  for  wrong  done,  whether  as  compen- 
sation or  punishment,  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
individual  and  became  the  affair  of  the  community ;  and 
this  was  a  great  step  upwards.  When  matters  had 
reached  this  stage,  the  idea  of  punishment  would  pre- 
dominate over  that  of  compensation,  and  a  certain  public 
moral  feeling  in  regard  of  offences  would  be  engendered. 
The  Germans,  according  to  Tacitus,  at  the  time  when 
they  came  into  conflict  with  the  Romans,  were  much  like 
the  Greeks  of  Homer's  time  in  their  views  of  compensa- 
tion for  wrong  done.  Homicide  was  expiated  by  a  gift 
of  cattle,  part  of  which  was  paid  to  the  king  or  state, 
part  to  the  injured  person  or  his  relatives  ;  and  when 
the  transaction  was  completed,  every  one  was  satisfied 
and  no  stigma  attached  to  the  murderer.  Among  the 
existing  Caffres  development  has  gone  so  far  that  the 
atonement-money  is  not  paid  to  the  injured  party  but  to 
the  chief. 

Among  savages,  however,  an  offence  against  the  tribe 
was  not  so  easily  expiated,  death  being  often  the  punish- 
ment. The  idea  of  criminality  could  hardly  fail  to  be- 
come attached  to  offences  which  were  thus  severely 
punished.  Certain  tribal  virtues  must  obviously  have 
been  essential  in  order  that  the  tribe  might  hold 


vi.]     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     401 

together,  and  maintain  itself  against  other  tribes  with 
which  it  was  in  frequent  conflict ;  the  tribe  which  was 
most  compact,  which  was  held  together  by  the  strongest 
bond  of  coherence,  being  most  likely  to  win  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  Now,  that  which  was  thus  the 
strongest  tie  to  bind  individuals  into  an  organized  body, 
and  to  preserve  their  tribal  existence,  would  be  most 
highly  esteemed  or  worshipped  by  the  tribe,  would  in 
fact  become  its  religion;  a  word,  the  derivation  of  which 
betrays  its  origin,  if  the  grammarians  are  right  in  obtain- 
ing it  from  the  Latin  rdigare  to  bind  fast.  A  sound  mo- 
rality being  like  the  connective  tissue  of  an  organism, 
could  not  fail,  even  though  of  an  elementary  kind,  to  have 
been  found  so  useful  to  a  tribe  that  it  would,  like  great 
foresight  or  prudent  self-denial,  have  made  it  superior  to 
other  tribes  that  were  without  it ;  and  so  the  primitive 
morality  would  become  a  religion,  an  offence  against 
which  would  occasion  horror  and  entail  punishment. 
The  history  of  the  Jews,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible,  yields 
a  striking  illustration  of  the  advantage  of  the  strong  bond 
of  cohesion  which  they  had  in  the  possession  of  a  spe- 
cial God,  the  God  of  Israel,  more  powerful  than  the 
gods  of  the  heathen,  and  of  laws  of  morality  proclaimed 
by  him  through  his  favoured  servant  Moses,  who  had, 
moreover,  the  previous  advantage  of  being  learned  in  all 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians. 

But  the  moral  feeling  of  the  Jews  was  entirely  na- 
tional; the  commandments  thereof  had  reference  to  their 
relations  with  one  another  as  a  chosen  people,  not  to 
their  relations  with  other  nations.  It  was  lawful  and 
right,  for  it  was  the  direct  command  of  Jehovah,  to  put 
to  the  sword  the  Canaanites  whom  they  invaded — them 
and  their  wives  and  their  children — and  to  make  their 
children  pass  under  the  harrow.  "Thou  shalt  do  no 
murder"  did  not  mean  thou  shalt  not  murder  a  Ca- 
naanite;  "Thou  shalt  not  steal"  did  not  mean  thou 


j02  THE  PU  YSIOL  OGY  OF  MIND.  [c  11  A  P. 

shall  not  spoil  the  Egyptian  and  the  Philistine ;  "  Thou 
shall  not  bear  false  witness"  did  not  mean  thou  shall 
not  betray  an  enemy  to  his  destruction  by  falsehood  and 
guile.*  So  it  was  among  other  savage  tribes  or  nations 
who  had  not  reached  so  high  a  state  of  development  as 
the  Jews,  by  aid  of  the  wisdom  of  Moses,  had  done  :  the 
individual  conformed  to  the  moral  feeling  of  his  tribe, 
but  never  dreamt  that  it  had — what  it  could  not  well 
have  had  in  those  days — any  application  to  the  mem- 
bers of  other  tribes ;  it  was  a  religion  with  him  to  do 
unto  ihem  what  it  was  his  religion  not  to  do  unto  his 
own  people.t  No  doubt  we  have  reached  a  much 
higher  pitch  of  moral  feeling  now,  Christianity  having 
theoretically  broken  down  the  barriers  of  isolation  and 
proclaimed  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man ;  but  it  is 
sad  and  humiliating  to  feel  how  small  is  the  international 

*  The  story  of  Jael  and  Sisera  is  instructive  in  this  respect  ;  the 
light  in  which  she  was  regarded  for  her  abuse  of  the  sacred  rite  of 
eastern  hospitality  showing  the  limited  range  of  moral  feeling  at  that 
time : — "  Blessed  above  women  shall  Jael  the  wife  of  Heber  the 
Kenite  be,  blessed  shall  she  be  above  women  in  the  tent.  He  asked 
water,  and  she  gave  him  milk  ;  she  brought  forth  butter  in  a  lordly 
dish.  She  put  her  hand  to  the  nail,  and  her  right  hand  to  the 
workmen's  hammer  ;  and  with  the  hammer  she  smote  Sisera,  she 
smote  off  his  head,  when  she  had  pierced  and  stricken  through  his 
temples.  At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell,  he  lay  down  ;  at  her  feet 
he  bowed,  he  fell  ;  where  he  bowed,  there  he  fell  down  dead." 
(Judges  v.  24—27). 

+  The  wife  of  an  Australian  savage  having  died  of  some  disease, 
he  informed  Dr.  Lander  that  he  would  go  and  kill  a  woman  of  a 
distant  tribe,  so  that  his  wife's  spirit  might  have  rest.  Forbidden 
imperatively  to  do  so,  and  threatened  with  imprisonment  if  he  did, 
he  became  wretched  and  wasted  away  ;  but  he  disappeared  event- 
ually, and  was  absent  for  some  time.  When  he  reappeared  he  was 
in  good  condition,  for  he  had  succeeded  in  killing  a  woman  ;  his 
sorrow  because  of  a  sacred  duty  omitted  had  disappeared,  his  tribal 
moral  feeling  was  satisfied,  and  his  bodily  nutrition  sympathised 
with  the  restored  animation  of  his  mind. — American  Journal  of 
Insanity,  July  1871. 


vi.]     THE  EMO  TIQNS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     403 

application  which  good  principles  yet  have.  It  is  an 
odd  satire  on  the  profession  of  Christian  doctrines 
which  is  afforded  by  the  spectacle  of  two  great  armies 
worshipping  the  same  God  and  professing  the  same 
religion  of  peace  and  goodwill  among  men,  yet  each  on 
the  eve  of  battle  putting  up  earnest  prayers  to  him  to 
render  its  slaughter  efficacious,  and  to  give  it  the 
victor)'  over  those  who  are,  with  equal  earnestness, 
invoking  his  special  aid  and  protection.  However, 
these  are  amusements  which  men  will  relinquish  as 
they  become  wiser  and  better;  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  in  the  time  to  come,  though  the  day  may  be 
yet  afar  off,  there  will  be  a  progress  from  national  to 
international  moral  feeling,  as  there  has  in  times  past 
been  a  progress  from  the  family  to  the  tribe,  from  the 
tribe  to  the  nation  ;  that  men,  perceiving  clearly  their 
interests  to  be  one,  shall  learn  to  put  the  interests  of 
humanity  above  those  of  the  nation,  and  shall  not  learn 
war  any  more ;  that  they  will  be  bound  compactly  to- 
gether by  a  strong  feeling  of  brotherhood,  and  that  this 
bond  of  religion  will  inspire  their  efforts  to  promote  the 
welfare  of  humanity,  and  to  further  its  evolution  through 
the  ages  that  must  pass  before  the  earth  becomes  either 
too  hot  by  approaching  the  sun,  or  too  cold  by  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  sun's  fire,  to  sustain  animal  life  upon  its 
surface.* 

*  The  narrow  and  vulgar  patriotism  which  takes  the  form  of 
asserting  and  upholding  the  interests  of  a  nation,  whether  they  be 
the  interests  of  justice  and  humanity  or  not,  is  a  different  thing 
from,  and  of  a  lower  order  of  virtue  than  (if  it  be  a  virtue)  the  true 
patriotism  which  animates  the  individual  who  sacrifices  his  own  in- 
terests and,  if  need  be,  his  life  for  his  country.  It  is  plain  that  the 
righteous  nation  should  subordinate  its  interests  to  those  of  humanity, 
as  the  patriotic  individual  subordinates  his  interests  to  those  of  his 
community  or  nation.  The  authorized  British  prayer  for  the  head  of 
the  state — "grant  her  in  health  and  wealth  long  to  live;  strengthen  her 
that  she  may  vanquish  and  overcome  all  her  enemies,"  be  her  cause 


404  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

In  the  growth,  in  range  and  power,  of  the  moral  ele- 
ment in  human  nature  which  marks  its  slowly  proceed- 
ing evolution,  we  see  clearly  exhibited  a  vast  modification 
of  the  operation  of  the  law  of  natural  selection  by  means 
of  the  moral  law.  Whereas  it  is  conformable  to  natural 
selection  that  the  strongest  should  make  the  best  use  of 
its  strength  for  its  own  advantage,  and  that  the  weak, 
falling  by  the  wayside  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
should  be  trampled  upon,  the  moral  law,  as  it  has 
received  its  latest  and  highest  exposition  in  Christian 
doctrine,  ordains  that  those  who  are  strong  shall  raise  up 
them  that  fall;  that  those  who  are  in  joy  shall  comfort  those 
that  mourn ;  that  those  who  are  prosperous  shall  help 
those  that  are  in  affliction  and  distress ;  that  man  on  all 
occasions  shall  do  unto  another  as  he  would  have  another 
do  unto  him,  not  using  his  advantages  with  eager  selfish- 
ness for  his  own  profit,  but  having  in  all  he  does  a  larger 
reference  to  the  good  of  his  kind.  It  is  the  survival  not 
of  the  fittest  individual  organism,  but  of  the  fittest  social 
organism,  or  rather  the  fittest  organism  of  humanity, 
which  is  the  effect  of  its  operation  —  the  compact 
cementing  of  human  interests  into  solidarity  by  the  prac- 
tical recognition  of  universal  brotherhood,  which,  being 
its  probable  effect  through  the  ages  to  come,  we  may 
venture  to  foresee,  and  to  describe  accordingly,  as  its 
aim  now.  Mr.  Darwin  has  pointed  out  very  clearly  how 
the  operation  of  the  law  of  natural  selection  is  largely 
modified  in  the  lower  animals  by  the  operation  of  the  law 
of  sexual  selection ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how 
we  are  brought  back  to  sexual  association  in  man  when 
we  go  backwards  over  the  course  of  the  gradual  de- 
velopment of  moral  feeling,  and  trace  it  to  its  early 
beginnings  in  the  family;  and  how,  groping  our  way 

right  or  wrong — characteristic  as  it  is  of  the  spirit  of  the  country, 
has  a  strong  strain  of  Philistinism  in  it,  which  suits  not  well  with 
the  expansion  of  moral  feeling. 


vi.J     THE  EMOTIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.    405 

still  further  back,  we  can  go  down  at  last  to  the  instinct 
of  propagation  in  which,  believing  it  to  contain  the  pro- 
phecy of  a  social  organism,  I  have  proposed  to  find  the 
root  of  the  moral  sense. 

Having  clearly  realised  that  the  individual  rightly  de- 
veloping in  his  generation  is,  by  virtue  of  the  laws  of 
hereditary  action,  ordaining  or  determining  what  shall 
be  pre-ordained  or  pre-determined  in  the  original  nature 
of  the  individual  of  a  future  age,  it  behoves  us  not  to 
lose  sight  of  the  physical  aspect  of  this  development. 
The  moral  feeling  betokens  an  improved  quality  or 
higher  kind  of  nerve  structure,  or  an  additional  develop- 
ment of  structure,  which  ensues  in  the  course  of  a  right 
development,  and  which  may  easily  again  be  disturbed 
by  a  slight  physical  disturbance  of  the  nervous  element. 
In  the  exaltation  of  mankind  through  generations — in 
the  progress  of  humanization,  so  to  speak — this  height 
of  excellence  is  reached :  in  the  deterioration  or  de- 
generation of  mankind,  as  exhibited  in  the  downward 
course  of  insanity  proceeding  through  generations,  one 
of  the  earliest  evil  symptoms  is,  as  we  shall  hereafter 
see,  the  loss  of  this  virtue — the  destruction  of  the  moral 
or  altruistic  feeling.  Its  formation  is  a  matter  of  organic 
evolution  ;  its  destruction  a  matter  of  organic  dissolu- 
tion. Insane  persons  are  entirely  wrapped  up  in  self, 
though  the  self-feeling  may  take  many  guises. 

The  intimate  and  essential  relation  of  emotions  to 
ideas,  which  they  equal  in  number  and  variety,  is  suffi- 
cient to  prove  that  the  law  of  progress  from  the  general 
and  simple  to  the  special  and  complex  prevails  in  their 
development.  If  such  relation  were  not  a  necessary  one, 
it  would  still  be  possible  to  display  that  manner  of  evo- 
lution from  a  consideration  of  the  emotions  themselves. 
And  the  recognition  of  this  increasing  specialization  and 
complexity  in  the  function  compels  us  to  assume  a  cor- 
responding development  in  the  delicate  organization  of 


406  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  nervous  structure,  although,  by  reason  of  the  imper- 
fection of  our  means  of  investigation,  we  are  not  able  to 
trace  a  process  of  so  much  delicacy  in  those  inmost  re- 
cesses to  which  our  senses  have  not  yet  access. 


NOTES. 

1  (A  349)- — "  Notre  ame  fait  certaines  actions  et  soufire  certaines 
passions ;  savoir :  en  tant  qu'elle  a  des  idees  adequates,  elle  fait 
certaines  actions  ;  et  en  tant  qu'elle  a  des  idees  inadequates,  elle 
souffre  certaines  passions." — SPINOZA,  Des  Passions,  Prop.  i. 

a  (/•  352)- — "Among  so  many  dangers,  therefore,  as  the  natural 
lust  of  men  do  daily  threaten  each  other  withal,  to  have  a  care  of 
one's  self  is  so  far  from  being  a  matter  scornfully  to  be  looked  upon, 
that  one  has  neither  the  power  nor  wish  to  have  done  otherwise. 
For  every  man  is  desirous  of  what  is  good  for  him,  and  shuns  what 
is  evil,  but  chiefly  the  chiefest  of  natural  evils,  which  is  death  ;  and 
this  he  doth  by  a  certain  impulsion  of  nature,  no  less  than  that 
whereby  a  stone  moves  downwards." — HOBBES,  voL  ii.  p.  8. 

3  (P'  353)- — "Le  desir,  c'est  1'appetit,  avec  conscience  de  lui- 
hieme.     II  resulte  de  tout  cela,  que  ce  qui  fonde  I'effort,  le  vouloir, 
1'appetit,  le  desir,  ce  n'est  pas  qu'on  ait  juge  qu'une  chose  est  bonne  : 
mais,  au  contraire,  on  juge  qu'une  chose  est  bonne  par  cela  meme 
qu'on  y  tend  par  I'effort,  le  vouloir,  1'appe'tit,  le  desir."— SPINOZA, 
Des  Passions,  SchoL  to  Prop.  ix. 

4  (/•  35^)- — "  But  we  must  frankly  admit,  on  consideration,  that 
the  political  rule  of  intelligence  is  hostile  to  human  progression. 
Mind  must  tend  more  and  more  to  the  supreme  direction  of  affairs  ; 
but  it  can  never  attain  it,  owing  to  the  imperfection  of  our  organism, 
in  which  the  intellectual  life  is  the  feeblest  part ;  and  thus  it  appears 
that  the  real  office  of  mind  is  deliberative ;  that  is,  to  moderate  the 
material  preponderance,  and  not  to  impart  its  habitual  impulsion  " 
• — COMTE,    Positive   Philosophy,    vol.    ii.    p.    240.     (Afartineau's 
Abridgment.}     See  also  Positive  Polity,  passim.     It  was  a  funda- 
mental maxim  of  his    philosophy,   "We  act   from  affection:  we 
think  in  order  to  act."    Notwithstanding  that  the  intellectual  powers 
increase  in  importance  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  animality  up  to  man, 
"  these  functions  never  become,  even  in  our  own  race,  the  principal 
and  permanent  motors  of  existence.     The  real  unity  of  life  depends 
Invariably  upon  affection  of  one  kind  or  another." 


VI.  ]     THE  EMO  TIONS  OR  AFFECTIONS  OF  MIND.     407 

5  (/.  361). — "  For  it  is  not  his  disputations  about  pleasure  and 
pain  that  can  satisfy  this  inquiry  ;  no  more  than  he  who  should 
generally  handle   the   nature   of  light    can  be  said  to  handle  the 
nature  of  particular  colours  ;  for  pleasure  and  pain  are  to  the  par- 
ticular affections  as  light  is  to   part  cular  colours." — BACON,   De 
.-lugmcnl.  Sclent. 

"  Autant  il  y  a  d'espvce  d'objets  qui  nous  aflectent,  autant  il  faut 
reconnaitre  d'espcces  de  joie,  de  tristesse,  et  de  desir  ;  et  en  general 
de  toutes  les  passions  qui  sont  composees  de  ctlles-la,  comme  la 
fluctuation,  par  exeraple,  ou  qui  en  derivent,  comme  1'amour,  la 
haine,  1'esperance,  la  crainte,"  &c. — SPINOZA,  Des  Passions. 

6  (/.  364). — "  Mais  il  faut  en  outre  remarquerici  qu'il  n'est  nulie- 
ment  surprenant  que  la  tristesse  accompagne  tous  les  actes  qu'on  a 
continue  d'appeler  tnauvais,  et  la  joic  tous  ceux  qu'on  nommc  lions 
On  con£oiten  effet  par  ce  qui  precede  que  tout  cela  depend  surtoJt 
de  1'education.     Les  parents,  en  blamant  certaines  actions,  et  repri- 
mandant  souvent  leurs  cnfants  pour  les  avoir  commises,  ct  au  con- 
traireen  louant  et  en  conseillant  d'autres  actions,  ont  si  bien  fait  que 
la  tristesse  accompagne  toujours  celles-la  et  la  joie  toujours  cclles-ci. 
L'experience  confirme  cette  explication.     La  coutume  et  la  religion 
ne  sont  pas  les  memes  pour  tous  les  hommes  :  ce  qui  est  sacre  pour 
les  uns  est  profane  pour  les  autres,  et  les  choses  honnetes  chez  un 
peuple  sont  hontev.ses  chez  un  autre  peuple.     Chacun  se  repent  done 
ou   se  glorifie  d'une  action    suivant  1'education  qu'il  a  recue." — 
Sl'iNOZA,  Des  Passions,  p.   159. 

7  (A  3°5)' — Many   illustrations  might  be  adduced  from  Shak- 
speare's  plays  of  the  wonderful  harmony  between  the  highest  human 
feelings  and  the  aspects  of  nature  ;  some  of  these  I  have  pointed  ou* 
in  an  essay  on  Hamlet  in  the  Westminster  Review  of  January,  186^. 
The  best  known  passage  is  that  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice :  — 

"  Sit,  Jessica.     Look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold. 
There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubin  : 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls  ; 
But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in  we  cannot  hear  it." 

Again,  Milton  in  his  Arcades : 

"  But  else  in  deep  of  night,  when  drowsiness 
Hath  locked  up  mortal  sense,  then  listen  I 
To  the  celestial  Sirens'  harmony, 


408  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.        [CHAP.  vi. 

That  sit  upon  the  nine  enfolded  spheres, 
And  sing  to  those  that  hold  the  vital  shears, 
And  turn  the  adamantine  spindle  round, 
On  which  the  fate  of  gods  and  men  is  wound. 
Such  sweet  compulsion  doth  in  music  lie, 
To  lull  the  daughters  of  necessity, 
And  keep  unsteady  Nature  to  her  law, 
And  the  low  world  in  measured  motion  draw 
After  the  heavenly  tune,  which  none  can  hear 
Of  human  mould  with  gross  unpurged  ear." 

Sir  T.  Browne,  in  his  Religio  Medici,  says  :  "  It  is  my  temper, 
and  I  like  it  the  better,  to  affect  all  harmony  :  and  sure  there  is 
music  even  in  the  beauty  and  the  silent  note  which  Cupid  strikes,  far 
sweeter  than  the  sound  of  an  instrument  :  for  there  is  music  wherever 
there  is  harmony,  order,  or  proportion  ;  and  thus  far  we  may  main- 
tain the  music  of  the  spheres ;  for  these  well-ordered  motions,  and 
regular  paces,  though  they  give  no  sound  to  the  ear,  yet  to  the 

understanding    they  strike  a  note  most    full   of  harmony 

It  is  a  hieroglyphical  and  shadowed  lesson  of  the  whole  world, 
and  creatures  of  God  ;  such  a  melody  to  the  ear,  as  the  whole  world, 
well  undei'stood,  would  afford  the  understanding."  Passages  of  like 
import  might  be  quoted  from  Goethe,  Jean  Paul,  IIuuibuKlt,  Emer- 
son, Carlyle.  and  many  other  writers. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
VOLITION. 

"  Les  homines  se  trompent  en  ce  point  qu'ils  pensent  ctre  libres. 
Or,  en  quoi  consiste  une  telle  opinion  ?  En  cela  seulcment,  qu'ils 
ont  conscience  de  leurs  actions  et  ignorent  les  causes  qui  les  deter- 
mincnt.  L'idee  que  les  hommes  se  font  de  leur  liberte  vient  done 
de  ce  qu'ils  ne  connaissent  point  la  cause  de  leurs  actions,  car  dire 
qu'elles  dependent  de  la  volonte,  ce  sont  la  des  mots  auxquels  on 
n'attache  eucune  idee.  Quelle  est  en  effet  la  nature  de  la  volonte, 
et  comment  meut-elle  le  corps,  c'est  ce  que  tout  le  monde  ignore,  et 
cenx  qui  elevent  d'autres  pretentious  et  parlent  des  sieges  de  1'ame 
et  de  ses  demeures  pretent  a  rire  ou  font  pitie." — SPINOZA,  Saisset's 
Translation. 

"  En  tout,  ce  que  je  puis  dire  a  ceux  qui  croient  qu'ils  peuvent 
parler,  se  taire,  en  un  mot,  agir  en  vertu  d'une  libre  dec  sion  de 
1'ame,  c'est  qu'ils  revent  lesyeux  ou  verts." — Ibid. 

IT  is  strange  to  see  how  some,  who  confidently  base 
their  argument  for  the  existence  of  a  God  on  the  ground 
that  everything  in  nature  must  have  a  cause,  are  content, 
in  their  zeal  for  free-will,  to  speak  of  the  will  as  if  it  were 
self-determined  and  had  no  cause.  As  thus  vulgarly 
used,  the  term  Will  has  no  definite  meaning,  and  cer- 
tainly is  not  applicable  to  any  concrete  reality  in  nature, 
where,  in  the  matter  of  will,  as  in  every  other  matter,  we 
perceive  effect  witnessing  to  cause,  and  varying  accord- 
ing as  the  cause  varies.  Nor  is  this  the  only  incon- 
sistency which  those  who  vindicate  a  metaphysical  will 
are  apt  to  perpetrate.  While  holding  that  there  is  an  im- 
passable gulf  between  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious, 


410  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP, 

and  pronouncing  the  connection  between  matter  and 
mind  to  be  unthinkable,  they  declare  in  the  same  breath 
that  they  have  incontestable  proof  of  the  existence 
of  will  in  the  distinct  consciousness  which  they  have  of 
the  power  of  producing  motion  of  their  limbs  by  an  act  of 
volition.  In  other  words,  every  moment  of  their  lives 
almost  they  pass  a  gulf  which  they  declare  to  be  im- 
passable, think  a  connection  which  they  declare  to  be 
unthinkable. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  I  shrink  from  encountering 
a  difficulty  fairly  if  I  pass  rapidly  over  the  long  standing 
dispute  concerning  free-will  and  necessity.  It  would  be 
vain  to  pretend  to  throw  any  new  light  upon  a  subject 
which  has  been  discussed  over  and  over  again,  although 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  result,  owing  perhaps  to 
ambiguity  in  the  terms  used,  has  commonly  been  to 
leave  matters  much  as  they  were,  and  the  opponents  on 
each  side  convinced  that  they  have  gained  the  day. 
Certainly  to  one  who  looks  at  the  matter  with  the  naked 
eye  of  common  sense  it  would  appear  that  the  term  free, 
if  properly  used,  should  be  used  of  the  man,  not  of  his 
will ;  if  he  be  free  to  do  as  he  pleases,  in  other  words, 
as  he  wills,  he  is  free ,  if  he  is  hindered  from  doing  so 
by  internal  or  external  causes,  or  is  obliged  to  do  some- 
thing else,  he  is  not  free ;  a  will  free  to  will  itself  strikes 
one  as  simply  nonsense.  The  question,  however,  is  one 
which  will  not  be  settled  by  controversy,  but  I  cannot 
doubt  that  it  will  be  settled  gradually,  without  need  of 
controversy,  by  the  progress  of  human  knowledge  ;  the 
time  being  probably  not  far  distant  now  when  men  will 
wonder  that  so  much  subtile  ingenuity  and  zealous  laboui 
should  have  been  bestowed  upon  it.  They  will  awake 
some  day  to  be  conscious  that  there  is  no  question  for 
discussion,  that  mankind  has  solved  it  by  marching,  and 
that  it  only  remains  to  display  explicitly  in  knowledge 
what  is  implicit  in  action. 


vii.  J  VOLITION.  411 

The  advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  the  so-called  freedom 
of  human  will — for  animals  are  excluded  from  the  benefit 
of  it — declare  that  every  man's  consciousness  witnesses 
emphatically  that  he  can  choose  arbitrarily  between  two 
motives,  and  that  he  is  often  free  to  do  or  to  abstain 
from  doing  what  he  does ;  wherefore  they  maintain  that 
the  will  is  free.  Their  opponents  retort,  in  an  equally 
precise  and  dogmatic  way,  that  there  is  a  uniform  con- 
junction between  motive  and  act,  that  the  will  follows 
the  strongest  motive,  and  that  human  actions,  like  all 
other  natural  phenomena,  conform  to  constant  laws ; 
wherefore  they  maintain  that  the  word  free-will  is  an 
unmeaning  absurdity,  and  that  the  notion  of  a  free  will 
in  the  microcosm  of  man  is  the  equivalent  of  the  explod- 
ed notion  of  chance  in  the  macrocosm  of  the  universe. 
Such  are  the  conflicting  theories  of  the  opposing  sides. 
Meanwhile  all  human  institutions,  as  well  as  human  con- 
duct, are  practically  founded  on  a  recognition,  implicit 
or  explicit,  of  the  reign  of  law  in  the  province  of  mind  : 
education,  the  penal  code,  social  regulations,  legislative 
enactments  rest  upon  this  basis,  and  emancipation  from 
their  sanctions  is  treated  as  crime  or  insanity.  The  plain 
design  of  these  enactments  is  to  constrain  people  to  act 
in  a  certain  way,  by  supplying  the  motives  which  shall 
determine  the  will ;  and  the  result  of  experience  assur- 
edly is  to  prove  that  they  are  efficacious,  for  the  world 
goes  on  making  systematic  use  of  them,  which  it  would 
not  do  if  they  were  not  proved  efficacious  by  trial,  that 
is  to  say,  if  the  constancy  of  their  action  were  liable  to 
be  interrupted  at  any  moment  by  a  capricious,  arbitrary, 
free  will,  such  as  metaphysicians  have  imagined  and  theo- 
logians have  extolled.  Brethren  could  not  dwell  together 
in  unity,  human  society  would  in  fact  be  impossible, 
if  men  were  not  able  to  reckon  upon  one  another's 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions  under  certain  conditions ; 
but  they  do  rely  on  the  general  uniformity  of  human 


412  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

character  and  conduct  as  they  rely  on  the  uniformity  of 
physical  nature,  because  there  is  a  uniformity  in  the 
operations  of  moral  causes  or  motives  as  there  is  in  the 
operations  of  physical  causes.* 

A  self-determining  will  is  an  unmeaning  contradiction 
in  terms  and  an  inconceivability  in  fact ;  were  there  such 
a  power,  there  would  be  no  reason  to  be  surprised  at  any 
act  which  a  man  might  do,  or  to  reprobate  it,  however 
criminal;  for  to  suppose  a  man  to  act  by  reason  of  it,  with- 
out its  being  influenced  by  reason,  would  be  to  suppose 
him  worse  than  a  madman.  Insane  persons  do  not  conspire 
in  asylums,  because  they  cannot  reckon  upon  one  another, 
and  do  surprise  and  alarm  sane  persons  by  their  conduct, 
because  it  so  often  presents  a  deviation  from  the  uni- 
formity of  action  of  moral  causes.  Were  the  will  free, 
as  supposed,  madmen  would  exhibit  the  most  free 
wills,  inasmuch  as  their  conduct  would  be  the  least  to  be 
predicted.  Animals  which  hunt  in  packs,  or  live  in 
herds,  so  hunt  or  live  because  they  depend  upon  con- 
stancy of  action  in  each  member,  at  any  rate  under  the 

*  The  general  uniformity  of  human  beliefs,  and  the  more  special 
uniformities  of  beliefs  among  different  parties,  sects,  nations,  are 
instances  of  corresponding  internal  adaptations  to  corresponding 
external  impressions.  What  else  at  bottom  is  a  belief  than  the  self- 
conscious  aspect  of  an  excito-motor  process  in  the  cerebral  convolu- 
tions ?  It  is  an  induction  from  experiences — a  conviction  that  when 
certain  impressions  are  made  upon  the  senses,  certain  other  definite 
impressions  will  be  received  from  certain  adapted  motor  reactions. 
There  is  always  some  feeling  in  the  process,  but  the  belief  gains  in 
intensity  according  to  the  strength  of  the  feeling  or  affective  element 
which  enters  into  the  process.  Of  course,  it  is  not  possible  on  all 
occasions  to  make  the  adapted  motor  reactions,  but  one  learns  from 
the  experiences  of  others  as  well  from  one's  own,  and  generalises  from 
particular  experiences  as  to  the  permanent  possibilities  of  similar  de- 
finite impressions,  could  the  experience  ever  be  made.  A  belief  then 
is  my  ronviction  that  I,  if  acted  upon  by  certain  impressions,  can  or 
might  react  definitely  upon  that  which  has  produced  them,  and  gain 
thereby  other  definite  impressions. 


vii.]  VOLITION.  413 

limited  conditions  of  their  union.  The  antipathy  and 
opposition  which  mankind  show  to  a  new  idea  when  it  is 
first  promulgated  is  probably  due  in  great  measure  to 
the  shock  which  it  occasions  to  the  uniformity  of  their 
ideas  and  feelings  ;  there  is  an  instinctive  repugnance  to, 
or  apprehension  of,  a  power  which  appears  to  be  arbi- 
trary, irresponsible  and,  so  far  as  antecedents  are  con- 
cerned, free.  This  hostility  or  want  of  receptivity  is 
most  marked  among  savages,  whose  mental  structures 
are  less  complex,  and  more  simple  and  uniform  in  their 
operations ;  they  can  conceive  no  further  justification  of 
a  custom,  however  foolish,  to  be  needed  than  that  it  was 
the  custom  of  their  fathers,  and  no  other  justification  of 
their  antagonism  to  something  new,  however  excellent, 
than  that  it  was  not  the  custom  of  their  fathers.  But 
one  need  not  go  to  savages  in  order  to  discover  that 
tfant  of  plasticity  to  accommodate  the  mind  to  new  im- 
pressions by  reason  of  which  the  reformer  is  in  the  first 
instance  almost  always  reviled  and  rejected  as  an  enemy 
of  the  race.  He  whose  hand  or  thought  is  against  every 
one  will  have  every  one's  hand  or  thought  against  him  ; 
if  he  can  convince  mankind  that  his  new  idea  is  not 
capricious,  undetermined,  and  hostile  to  their  mental 
organisation,  but  that  it  really  proceeds  from  it  and  re- 
presents a  development  of  it,  they  will  accept  it  in  the 
end,  though  they  may  have  stoned,  crucified,  poisoned, 
or  otherwise  made  a  martyr  of  its  author  in  the  first  out- 
burst of  their  antipathetic  fury.  The  whole  nature  of  a 
belief  may  be  transformed,  without  those  who  hold  it 
ever  receiving  any  shock  from  the  change,  if  the  new  be 
allowed  to  gently  insinuate  itself  into  the  old  and  to  be 
called  by  the  old  name :  they  then  let  go  the  old  and 
embrace  the  new  without  realising  the  transformation 
which  has  taken  place. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  in  the  practical  arrange- 
ments of  life  mankind  could  not  evince  more  distinctly 
19 


414  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

than  they  do  their  tacit  conviction  of  the  uniformity  of 
events,  both  in  the  psychical  and  the  physical  worlds ; 
in  other  words,  their  tacit  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
every  event,  mental  or  physical,  is  a  necessary  effect  o 
certain  antecedent  conditions,  invariably  produced  when 
they  are  present,  and  never  produced  when  they  are 
absent.  No  man  thinks  it  absurd  to  be  asked  why  he 
thought,  or  spoke,  or  acted  in  a  particular  way,  or  would 
be  flattered  by  the  supposition  that  he  had  no  motive  or 
reason  for  what  he  said  or  did.  Men  may  amuse  them- 
selves with  theoretical  discussions  about  free-will,  but 
the  provisions  which  they  make  practically  for  their  wel- 
fare are  not  disturbed  by  any  doubt  of  the  uniform 
sequence  of  events  in  psychical  nature.  When  they 
shall  have  succeeded  in  displaying  explicitly  in  reasoned 
exposition  what  is  implicit  in  their  social  evolution,  there 
will  be  an  end  of  the  controversy  respecting  free-will 

How  comes  it  to  pass,  then,  that,  while  so  hostile  practi- 
cally to  free-will,  feeling  that  it  would  entail  the  dissolution 
of  society,  they  nevertheless  hold  to  it  and  extol  it  as  the 
foundation  of  morality?  When  a  person  who  perpetrates 
a  crime,  not  being  insane,  is  punished,  he  is  punished  be- 
cause he  is  deemed  to  have  had  the  freedom  not  to  have 
done  it ;  at  the  same  time  a  main  object  of  the  punish- 
ment is  declared  to  be  to  supply  an  adequate  motive  to 
prevent  him  and  others  from  perpetrating  a  similar  crime 
— to  infuse  such  motives  into  his  character  as  shall  make 
its  expression  in  will  more  laudable.  To  reconcile  the 
theory  of  ireedom  openly  proclaimed  with  the  theory  of 
necessity  tacitly  acknowledged,  the  man  is  considered 
to  have  acted  with  free-will  in  the  past,  whereby  is  a 
justification  of  the  punishment  as  an  atonement  or  an 
act  of  social  vengeance ;  but  it  is  thought  right  that  his 
will  should  be  constrained  or  determined  by  a  suffi- 
ciently powerful  motive  for  the  future,  whereby  the 
infliction  of  punishment  is  made  to  rest  on  a  rational 


vii.]  VOLITION.  413 

basis.  For  it  is  plainly  a  rational  thing  on  the  part  ot 
society  to  determine  the  individual  by  his  own  sufferings, 
or  by  the  example  of  the  sufferings  of  others,  to  do  that 
which  shall  conduce  to  the  social  welfare,  and  to  abstain 
from  doing  that  which  is  detrimental  to  it — to  make  him 
a  social  being  who  shall  discharge  his  proper  functions 
in  the  social  organism,  and  to  prevent  him  from  becom- 
ing an  antisocial  being  who  must  be  isolated  in  prison 
or  asylum,  and  made  functionless  in  it ;  and  what  is  this 
but  the  practical  repudiation  of  the  doctrine  of  free- 
will ?  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  punishment  as  a 
vengeance  or  an  atonement  for  crime,  which  still  lingers 
in  the  criminal  law,  is  irrational,  and  based  upon  the 
metaphysical  doctrine  of  free-will ;  it  is  in  truth  a  sur- 
vival of  the  superstitious  ideas  which  find  their  strongest 
expression  in  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment.  Neither 
reformation  of  the  individual  nor  any  benefit  of  ex- 
ample to  others  can  be  thought  of  in  regard  to  the 
end  of  the  world  and  the  day  of  judgment :  there  can 
be  no  reformation,  for  the  sentence  is  eternal ;  there  can 
be  no  benefit  of  example,  for  the  saints  in  heaven  need 
it  not,  having  secured  eternal  bliss,  and  the  damned 
cannot  profit  by  it,  as  their  doom  is  irreversible ;  for  it 
may  be  noted  as  a  defect  in  the  economy  of  hell  that 
there  is  no  graduation  of  its  fires  according  to  the 
measure  of  culpability  or  to  the  degree  of  remorse. 
The  entire  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment 
is  fiendish  vengeance.* 

*  We  lift  up  our  hands  and  eyes  in  horror  when  we  read  of  the 
tortures  and  cruel  deaths  habitually  inflicted  by  the  barbarous  tribes 
of  Africa  under  the  influence  of  their  savage  superstitions.  Let  us 
emancipate  ourselves  from  the  custom  of  our  own  ideas,  and  en. 
deavour  to  see  ourselves  as  we  see  others,  and  as  others  will  some 
day  see  us.  Has  there  been  iu  all  history  anything  so  gratuitously 
horrible  and  barbarously  superstitious,  anything  evincing  such  a 
superfluous  ingenuity  of  cruel  imagination,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  con- 
demnation of  all  but  a  select  few  of  the  human  race  to  the  most 


{i6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  men  should  have 
conceived  the  doctrine  of  free-will,  and  why  they  should 
have  advocated  it  as  the  foundation  of  morality.  They 
were  wise  in  their  generations.  Self-consciousness  does 
undoubtedly  reveal  in  relation  to  many  acts  a  balance  of 
motives  so  nearly  equal  that  it  is  impossible  to  predict  on 
what  side  the  determination  shall  fall.  The  question 
being  whether  we  shall  do  a  particular  act  or  not,  and 
the  act  being  an  indifferent  one,  there  is  no  preponderant 
motive  for  doing  it  or  from  abstaining  from  doing  it; 
accordingly  the  result,  whatever  it  be,  looks  like  an  arbi- 
trary determination  of  the  will,  which  of  its  own  motion 
has  given  the  preponderance  to  one  motive,  more 
especially  when  the  result  has  proceeded  from  a  caprice 
of  showing  freedom.(')  But  is  it  really  so  ?*  Or  does 

agonizing  tortures  through  all  eternity  ?  Is  there  anything  so  ridi- 
culously inconsistent  as  that  amiable  persons  who  go  on  believing 
and  promulgating  that  doctrine,  and  finding  much  spiritual  comfort 
in  it,  should  grieve  over  stories  of  African  cruelty  and  superstition  ? 
Perhaps  the  time  will  come,  though  it  be  yet  afar  off,  when  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost,  with  its  story  of  the  fall  and  doom  of  man,  will  be  as 
surprising  evidence  of  the  state  of  intellectual  development  of  man- 
kind of  this  age  as  the  split  bones  of  human  thighs,  discovering  the 
marrow-eating  propensities  of  our  savage  ancestors,  are  to  us  of  the 
state  of  their  development. 

*  The  advocates  of  free-will  do  not  mean  that  between  motives 
and  volition  there  is  no  relation  whatever  ;  what  they  seem  to  assert 
is  that  the  conjunction  of  motive  and  volition  is  not  inseparable  like 
that  of  cause  and  effect  in  physics  ;  that  there  is  an  arbitrary  or  self- 
determining  power  which  enables  men  to  choose  any  one  of  two  or 
more  motives  present  to  the  mind,  and  to  make  that  the  operative 
motive.  But  this  theory  only  complicates  the  question  without 
making  the  least  step  towards  solving  it ;  for  it  is  obvious  that  so 
far  as  the  power  is  assumed  to  be  exempt  from  all  influence,  to  act 
from  a  higher  region  upon  the  motives,  to  be  absolutely  free,  there 
is  an  assumption  of  the  entire  question  ;  there  is  an  assumption  of  a 
miraculous,  supernatural  power,  subject  to  no  laws,  deriving  its 
energy  from  we  know  not  where,  and  not  therefore  in  any  sense 
measurable,  which  may  do  just  as  it  pleases  with  motives.  It  is 
a  small  matter,  therefore,  on  this  theory,  whether  motives  are 


vii.]  VOLITION.  417 

self-consciousness  deceive  us  in  the  matter,  revealing  to 
us  the  determination  come  to  and  the  foregoing  inde- 
cision, but  not  making  known  to  us  all  the  conditions,  em- 
bodied in  our  mental  organization,  on  which  the  issue 
has  actually  turned.  Not  only  what  we  have  felt  and 
thought  and  done  in  our  lifetimes,  but  that  which  our 
forefathers  have  felt  and  thought  and  done  in  their  life- 
times, entering  into  the  constitution  of  the  ego,  will 
operate  in  the  determination  which  we  come  to  either  to 
do  or  not  to  do  the  most  trivial  and  apparently  indif- 
ferent act.  Now  it  is  plain  that  self- consciousness  tells 
us  nothing  of  all  this  ;  as  a  temporary  condition  of  the 
ego,  it  reveals  the  particular  mental  state  of  the  moment, 
but  tells  us  nothing  of  the  manifold  conditions  or  latent 
motives,  tacitly  acting,  on  which  the  ego  or  seeming  free- 
will of  the  moment  depends.  How,  then,  can  conscious- 
ness undertake  to  deny  the  existence  of  what  it  can  take 
no  cognizance  of?  It  is  not  a  witness  at  all  in  such  a 
case,  any  more  than  a  man  who  observes  what  takes  place 
in  the  light  is  a  witness  to  what  is  taking  place  in  the 
dark.  And  in  truth  when  we  think  we  are  acting  with 
most  freedom,  because  acting  after  full  deliberation  with 
confident  decision,  unimpeded  by  any  conflict  of  motives, 
we  are  most  determined  by  conditions  of  our  nature  that 
are  beneath  consciousness  and  beyond  control.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  firmest  resolution  or  purpose  sometimes 
vanishes  issueless  when  it  comes  to  the  brink  of  the  act, 
while  the  true  will,  which  determines  perhaps  a  different 
act,  springs  up  suddenly  out  of  the  depths  of  the  being,  the 
unconscious  surprising  and  overcoming  the  conscious 

admitted  or  not  ;  for  it  would  be  just  as  easy  to  assume — and  as  im- 
possible to  conceive — an  arbitrary  self-determining  power  which  could 
do  without  motives  as  to  assume  one  which  works  by  picking  and 
choosing  among  motives,  and,  like  a  capricious  despot,  pleases 
itself  by  making  the  least  greatest  and  the  greatest  least  according 
to  the  whim  of  the  moment. 


ti8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

nature ;  so  that  until  action  has  taken  place  we  cannot  be 
certain  what  was  the  real  will.* 

"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them  "  is  as  true  of 
self-knowledge  as  of  the  knowledge  of  others ;  but 
as  we  cannot  view  our  own  deeds  with  impartial  eye, 
it  often  happens  that  other  people  know  us  better  than 
we  know  ourselves,  and  that  we  sincerely  condemn 
in  another  person's  character  what  we  are  complacently 
satisfied  with  in  our  own.  Could  we  penetrate  the 
closest  recesses  of  a  character,  and  make  ourselves  in- 
timately acquainted  with  all  its  inherited  and  acquired 
impulses,  knowing  them  as  we  know  the  properties  of  a 
chemical  compound  and  of  its  component  elements,  we 
could  foretell  with  certainty  how  the  individual  would  act 
in  any  given  circumstances  ;  but  although  we  cannot  thus 
reason  forwards  from  unknown  data,  we  can  reason  back- 
wards from  known  data;  knowing  what  his  acts  and  cir- 
cumstances have  been  we  may  know  his  character,  for 
they  declare  what  he  has  willed  or  failed  to  will,  and 
what  he  has  willed  or  failed  to  will,  as  read  in  his  history, 
declares  his  character.  To  suppose  that  the  acts  of  a 
man's  life,  or  any  of  them,  are  determined  by  a  power 
which,  in  so  far  as  it  gives  the  preponderance  to  one  of 
two  motives,  is  assumed  to  be  entirely  arbitrary,  abso- 
lutely exempt  from  all  influence,  supernaturally  infused, 
free,  is  as  wild  a  dream  as  ever  entered  into  the  imagi- 
nations of  metaphysicians  to  conceive.  Were  it  true,  all 
attempts  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  human  nature  would 
be  illusory  and  futile,  and  experience  of  men  would  go 
for  nothing  in  the  practical  affairs  of  life. 

The  aim  of  education  in  relation  to  the  sphere  ol 

*  Below  the  surface-stream,  shallow  and  light, 
Of  what  we  say  we  feel — below  the  stream, 
As  light,  of  what  we  think  we  feel — there  flows 
With  noiseless  current  strong,  obscure  and  deep, 
The  central  stream  of  what  we  feel  indeed. 


vii.]  VOLITION.  419 

moral  action  is  to  produce  a  nature  in  which  moral  action 
shall  be  not  a  matter  of  uncertainty  and  deliberation,  but 
a  habit ;  in  other  words,  a  nature  in  which  spontaneity 
shall  disappear  in  automatism.  Strange  contradiction  ! 
for  the  man  in  whom  moral  action  had  thus  become 
habitual  or  automatic  would  be  considered  to  have  a 
stronger  and  more  free  will  than  one  in  whom  it  was  an 
inconstant  result  of  deliberation.  This  brings  me  to  con- 
sider why  the  doctrine  of  free  will  has  been  advocated  as 
the  basis  of  morality.  Moral  action  is  certainly  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  the  evolution  of  the  social  organism, 
that  is,  of  the  progress  of  the  human  race  :  the  inductions 
of  experience  have  not  failed  to  teach  men  that.  It  is 
certain,  too,  that  the  desires  of  most  men  in  times  past 
were,  and  perhaps  still  are,  selfish,  and  that  the  tendency 
of  such  desires  is  to  become  anti-social.  The  aim  of 
education,  social  sanctions,  legal  enactments  is,  therefore, 
to  check  the  selfish  and  anti-social  inclinations  by  supply- 
ing a  powerful  body  of  suitable  motives,  and  to  implant 
and  foster  the  moral  or  altruistic  feelings  which  shall  pro- 
mote the  evolution  of  the  social  organism.  In  this  way 
the  social  community  of  one  age  strives  to  form  the  social 
units  of  the  following  age ;  to  establish  in  regard  of 
social  relations  a  harmony  in  one  generation  which  shall 
be  a  pre-established  harmony  of  nature  in  the  generations 
that  follow.  Such  is  the  process  expressed  in  terms  of 
physiology,  although  it  would  be  expressed  otherwise  in 
terms  of  religion.  Now,  how  can  men  on  each  occasion 
be  most  powerfully  instigated  to  seek  good  and  ensue 
it,  when  the  balance  of  personal  desires  and  propensities 
is  commonly  on  the  opposite  side  ?  Clearly  by  inculcating 
in  the  most  impressive  manner  possible  the  doctrine  of 
freewill  and  responsibility,  at  the  same  time  that  are 
presented  to  them  the  strongest  motives  for  moral  action 
which  can  be  fabricated — namely,  the  most  vivid  pictures 
of  the  unspeakable  joys  of  heaven  as  the  reward  of  well- 


»20  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

doing,  and  of  the  endless  torments  of  hell  as  the  punish- 
men  of  ill-doing.  In  this  way  we  constrain  them  at 
the  critical  moment  by  a  powerful  motive  to  act  rightly, 
and  aim,  by  enforcing  the  repetition  of  right  acts,  to 
foster  a  habit  of  acting  rightly,  and  to  work  by  degrees 
a  better  nature  in  them  ;  for  each  moral  act,  by  the  law 
of  nervous  action  which  has  been  already  illustrated 
largely,  renders  the  next  more  easy,  and  so  the  nature  is 
sradually  modified.  The  process  is  really  one  of  moral 
manufacture.  When  a  habit  of  nature  has  thus  been 
formed,  the  desire  of  the  organism  is  to  display  that 
function  which  is  embodied  in  its  nature,  and  the  pleasure 
of  gratifying  the  desire  by  doing  right  is  itself  a  sufficient 
motive.*  Then  the  individual  is  said  to  have  acquired 
the  greatest  strength  and  to  manifest  the  most  perfect 
freedom  of  will,  because  he  is  able  to  do  right  easily  in 
the  midst  of  ever  so  many  temptations  to  do  wrong ;  and 
thus  the  highest  freedom  of  will  is  cleverly  identified  with 
the  highest  morality.  Liberty  is  the  voice  of  conscience ; 
conscience  is  the  voice  of  God,  say  the  theologians.t 

*  "  In  the  great  majority  of  things,  habit  is  a  greater  plague  than 
ever  afflicted  Egypt :  in  religious  character,  it  is  eminently  a  felicity. 
The  devout  man  exults  to  feel  that  in  aid  of  the  simple  force  of  the 
divine  principle  within  him,  there  has  grown  by  time  an  accessional 
power,  which  has  almost  taken  the  place  of  his  will,  and  holds  a  firm 
though  quiet  domination  through  the  general  action  of  his  mind.  He 
feels  this  confirmed  habit  as  the  grasp  of  the  hand  of  God,  which 
will  never  let  him  go." — Essays.  By  John  Foster. 

+  The  Divine  grace  helping,  one  might  perhaps  add.  For  they 
seemingly  deem  not  that  kind  of  influence  inconsistent  with  the 
perfect  freedom  of  the  will,  any  more  than  they  deem  the  instigations 
of  the  de/il  anywise  inconsistent  with  the  entirely  spontaneous  origin 
of  evil  thoughts  and  actions.  But  they  do  not  shrink  from  inconsist- 
encies ;  for  while  they  admit  the  growth  and  development  of  the  will 
to  take  place  by  education  and  exercise,  they  still  declare  the  power 
so  gained  to  be  absolutely  free,  to  owe  nothing  to  that  which  has 
made  it,  to  be  independent  of  its  causation  ;  and  to  be  most  free  when 
it  has  become  a  confirmed  religious  habit  which  the  individual  feels 
"as  the  rrasp  of  the  band  of  God,  which  will  never  let  him  go  !" 


vn.J  VOLITION.  421 

It  would  appear  then  from  what  has  been  said  that  the 
doctrine  of  free-will,  like  some  other  doctrines  that  have 
done  their  work  and  then,  being  no  longer  of  any  use, 
have  undergone  decay — comparable  with  certain  bodily 
organs,  like  the  thyroid  gland,  which  have  their  functions 
in  early  development  and  then,  not  being  wanted  after- 
wards, undergo  atrophy — was  necessary  to  promote  the 
evolution  of  mankind  up  to  a  certain  stage.  By  incul- 
cating strenuously  upon  the  individual  his  absolute  free- 
dom of  will,  and  by  laying  the  greatest  stress  upon  his 
personal  responsibility  for  what  he  does,  it  is  evident  that 
we  add  greatly  to  the  force  of  the  motive  which  we  pre- 
sent to  induce  him  to  do  right.  On  the  one  side  is  the 
motive  to  do  right,  on  the  other  side  is  the  motive  to  do 
wrong — the  former  more  difficult,  the  latter  more  easy 
to  do ;  by  proclaiming  free-will  we  strengthen  the  former 
motive,  while  by  proclaiming  necessity  it  is  clear  that  we 
should  strengthen  the  latter  motive,  in  the  unenlightened 
or  inferior  person  who,  with  shortsighted  ignorance, 
would  gladly  go  the  easy  way  of  his  passions  rather  than 
the  arduous  way  of  his  true  welfare.  The  notion  of  free- 
will and  its  responsibilities  was  necessary,  therefore,  and 
perhaps  still  is,  to  make  for  him  a  higher  necessity  than 
the  necessity  of  his  passions.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  it  ever  was  or  is  now  necessary  for  him  whom  Con- 
fucius would  have  described  as  the  sage  or  superior  per- 
son, who  looks  to  the  endless  consequences  of  his  actions. 
To  him  the  clear  recognition  of  the  reign  of  law  in  the 
human  mind  will  furnish  the  strongest  motive  to  do  right, 
so  to  promote  his  own  best  development,  and  through 
individual  development  the  development  of  the  race,  the 
highest  interests  of  which  he  plainly  perceives  to  be  one 
with  his  highest  welfare ;  while  the  doctrine  of  free-will 
will  appear  to  be  an  effete  superstition,  the  offshoot  of 
ignorance,  mischievously  drawing  men's  minds  away  from 
the  beneficial  recognition  of  the  universal  reign  of  law 


122  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

and    of  their   solemn   responsibilities  under   the   stern 
necessity  of  universal  causation. 

Having  said  all  that  it  seems  necessary  to  say  here 
concerning  the  question  of  free-will,  I  go  on  now  to 
sketch,  so  far  as  practicable,  the  physiological  condition 
of  volition.  But,  I  may  remark  first,  by  the  way,  that 
we  may  be  helped  to  trace  the  genesis  of  the  will  by 
looking  to  the  original  meaning  of  the  word  and  to  its 
use  in  common  speech.  We  obtain  the  word  from  the 
Latin  volo,  which  meant  what  a  person  wished  or  would ; 
so  that  here  we  come  to  the  desire  or  wish  as  the  funda- 
mental element  of  will.  Jonathan  Edwards  has  argued 
that  there  is  no  fundamental  difference  between  volition 
and  preference ;  a  man's  choosing,  liking  best,  or  being 
best  pleased  with  a  thing,  being  the  same  with  his  willing 
it.  "  Thus  an  act  of  the  will  is  commonly  expressed  by 
its  pleasing  a  man  to  do  thus  or  thus;  and  a  man  doing 
as  he  -wills,  and  doing  as  he  pleases,  are  the  same  thing  in 
common  speech."  If  some  one  were  advised  to  pursue 
a  certain  course,  and,  impatient  of  advice,  were  to  de- 
clare angrily  that  he  would  do  as  he  liked  or  pleased,  he 
would  no  doubt  believe  that  he  was  claiming  and  main- 
taining his  freedom  of  will ;  his  adviser,  if  an  acute  psy- 
chologist, would  see  good  reason  to  entertain  a  different 
opinion.  Certainly  the  man  would  be  claiming  his  free- 
dom of  choice  between  two  desires  or  motives — his  free- 
dom to  follow  his  own  choice  and  not  another  man's ; 
and  this  freedom  of  choice  is  nothing  else  than  what  is 
often  incorrectly  described  as  the  freedom  of  will  to 
make  the  choice ;  for  the  so-called  freedom  of  will  is  the 
expression  of  the  likings  or  affinities  of  the  man's  cha- 
racter, and  turns  out,  when  closely  analysed,  to  depend 
upon  all  that  has  gone  before  to  constitute  his  present 
nature  and  inclination.  If,  overpowered  by  motives  pre- 
sented forcibly  to  his  mind  by  others,  he  were  to  do  some- 
thing which  he  did  not  like,  contrary  to  his  inclination  to 


vn.J  VOLITION.  423 

do  something  which  he  liked  better,  he  would  perhaps 
say  that  he  had  done  it  unwillingly,  which  would  be 
nonsense ;  for  how  could  he  have  done  unwillingly  that 
which  was  a  present  act  of  will  operating  in  opposition 
to  the  deep  inclinations  of  his  nature?  But  that  act  of 
will,  however  wise  ana  good  it  may  have  been,  was  in  no 
sense  free ;  it  was  the  direct  consequence  of  the  power- 
ful motives  excited  in  his  mind  by  the  persuasive  argu- 
ments of  other  persons,  which  overmastered  for  the 
occasion  the  less  conscious  impulses  of  his  nature.  But 
these  latter  will  not  fail  to  come  up  again,  and  the  man's 
habitual  actions  will  be  in  conformity  with  his  nature, 
which,  though  it  may  be  silenced  for  the  nonce,  can 
never  be  expelled. 

What  in  any  event  it  shall  please  or  like  me  to  do  will 
depend  upon  my  original  and  acquired  nature,  bodily  and 
mental — upon  all  that  has  gone  before,  either  in  the  way  of 
inheritance  from  ancestors  or  of  modification  by  education 
and  the  circumstances  of  life,  to  constitute  my  present 
complex  ego;  and  although  I  may  hold  that,  in  acting,  I 
have  really  acted  in  conformity  with  the  strongest  desire 
or  motive,  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  it  shall  always 
have  been  a  distinctly-formed  motive,  of  which  I  am 
clearly  conscious  and  which  I  can  set  forth  exactly  to 
others ;  on  the  contrary,  the  difficulty  sometimes  is  to  say 
what  was  the  real  motive,  this  having  been  of  a  complex 
character,  and  the  motive  sincerely  believed  and  declared 
to  have  actuated  rae  not  having  perhaps  been  the  real 
one.  Nevertheless,  it  can  admit  of  no  doubt  that  I  did 
act  as  it  liked  or  pleased  me  best  under  the  actual  cir- 
cumstances to  do — that  the  then  inclinations  or  likings 
of  my  nature  were  declared  in  the  deed — that  the  act  of 
will  was  the  expression  of  the  affinities  and  energy  of  my 
ego  at  the  moment  Common  language  describes  the 
facts  truthfully  enough ;  it  is  metaphysical  ingenuity, 
attempting  subtile  analysis  by  a  wrong  method,  which 


424  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

has  made  confusion.  Instead  of  analysing  the  con- 
crete elements  of  individual  character  and  forming  a 
body  of  sound  inductions,  it  has  constructed  an  ideal 
mental  philosophy,  of  which  free-will  is  the  chief  corner 
stone. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  philosophy  was  induced 
to  desert  the  solid  ground  of  facts  for  the  region  of  ab- 
stract entities  in  its  dealings  with  will.  Though  will  has 
its  fundamental  basis  in  desire,  yet  in  the  mind  of  a  cul- 
tivated person  desire,  when  it  issues  not  immediately  but 
mediately  in  action,  undergoes  so  many  processes  of  re- 
finement in  the  manifold  interactions  of  reasons  and 
feelings  which  we  call  deliberation,  that  its  original  cha- 
racter as  the  motor  factor  in  volition  is  masked.  We  get 
to  a  higher  stage  of  life  in  which  there  is  an  infinitely 
complex  co-ordination  and  subordination  of  functions. 
The  desire  enlightened  by  reason,  as  it  comes  out  from 
the  mental  crucible  through  which  it  has  passed,  is  of  so 
much  more  refined  and  abstract  a  nature  that  it  claims  a 
new  name,  and  is  accordingly  called  will.  The  next  step 
is  to  lose  sight  of  the  concrete  acts  of  will,  and  to  con- 
vert the  general  term  into  an  abstract  entity,  which  is 
supposed  to  have  arbitrary  powers.  It  would  be  just  as 
reasonable  to  invent  an  abstract  faculty  of  desire  existing 
independently  of  particular  desires,  and  operating  with 
arbitrary  power  in  them.  Besides  the  distinct  conscious- 
ness which  we  have  of  the  formation  of  volition,  after  we 
have  gone  through  the  deliberations  from  which  it  has 
issued,  we  are  certainly  conscious  of  a  distinct  feeling  of 
energy  or  power  which  is  inseparably  associated  with 
every  active  movement  that  we  make.  It  is  through  this 
feeling,  which  we  have  not  when  a  part  of  our  body  is 
moved  by  others,  that  we  are  conscious  of  our  own  effort, 
whether  the  effect  be  a  movement,  or,  if  outward  resist- 
ance be  too  great,  not ;  and  it  is  presumably  conveyed  to 
us  by  the  muscular  sense.  Now  it  is  obvious  that  this 


MI.]  VOLITION.  425 

consciousness  of  effort,  or  feeling  of  innervation,  is  well 
suited  to  suggest  the  notion  of  a  distinct  power  or  faculty 
capable  of  acting  with  abitrary  energy.  On  the  one  side 
we  have  the  distinct  consciousness  of  a  volition,  most  of 
the  antecedents  of  which  are  clean  out  of  sight;  on  the 
other  side,  we  have  the  distinct  consciousness  of  a  power 
or  energy  when  the  volition  becomes  active.  What  more 
was  needed  to  generate  the  illusion  of  a  free-will  ?  But 
the  testimony  is  one  thing,  the  interpretation  thereof 
another :  we  may  trust  consciousness  as  a  witness  to  the 
fact  of  experience  ;  but  its  testimony  covers  no  more  than 
that,  and  we  cannot  rely  upon  it  as  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  fact.  It  makes  known  the  volitional  energy  of  the 
moment ;  it  reveals  not  the  derivation  of  that  energy. 
When  a  person  regrets  a  certain  act,  and  affirms  that  he 
would  do  otherwise  if  he  were  in  exactly  the  same  cir- 
cumstances again,  it  is  an  illusion ;  if  the  circumstances 
were  exactly  the  same,  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to 
do  otherwise  than  as  he  did ;  but  if  he  introduces  a  new 
element  derived  from  subsequent  reflections,  he  might 
no  doubt  do  differently,  only  he  should  then  perceive 
that  the  conditions  have  been  changed,  and  a  new  factor 
introduced  to  operate  upon  the  will.  It  is  by  overlook- 
ing the  new  element  which  is  now  introduced  into  his 
deliberation  that  he  imagines  he  might  have  done  other- 
wise on  the  first  occasion. 

These  considerations,  with  others  that  have  been 
brought  forward  in  foregoing  chapters,  must  have  suffi- 
ciently proved  the  necessity  of  modifying  the  notion 
commonly  entertained  of  the  will  as  a  single,  undecom- 
posable  faculty,  of  constant  and  uniform  power.  It  has 
been  shown  that  under  the  category  of  voluntary  acts, 
as  commonly  made,  are  included  very  different  kinds  of 
actions  proceeding  from  different  nervous  centres  ;  and 
it  has  been  shown  that  we  must  either  acknowledge  each 
of  these  centres  to  have  its  own  volition,  and  human  will 


426  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

to  be  divisible  into  as  many  parts  as  there  are  nervous 
centres,  or  we  must  recognise  in  what  are  called  true 
voluntary  acts  of  the  convolutions  the  display  of  the 
same  fundamental  properties  of  nervous  tissue  which  the 
lowest  nervous  centres  display.  A  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  daily  actions  of  life  is  confessedly  due  to  the 
automatic  functions  of  the  spinal  cord  ;  the  sensory  cen- 
tres are  clearly  the  independent  causes  of  other  actions ; 
while  many  of  the  remaining  actions  that  would  by  most 
people  be  deemed  volitional  are  really  respondent  to  idea 
or  emotion.  Each  nervous  centre  embodies  in  its  nature 
a  quantity  of  energy  of  a  very  high  order,  accumulated 
by  nutrition,  which  it  is  ready  to  discharge  in  its  proper 
function  on  the  occasion  of  a  suitable  stimulus.  This 
just  discrimination  of  functions  is,  notwithstanding,  en- 
tirely neglected  by  those  who  take  the  metaphysical  view 
of  will ;  by  them  the  abstraction  from  the  particular  is 
converted  into  an  entity,  and  thenceforth  allowed  to 
tyrannize  in  the  most  despotic  manner  over  the  under- 
standing. The  metaphysical  essence  thus  created  has  no 
other  relation  to  a  particular  or  concrete  act  of  will,  than, 
using  Spinoza's  illustration,  stoneness  to  a  particular  stone, 
man  to  Peter  or  Paul. 

It  is  obviously,  then,  of  importance,  in  the  first  place, 
to  get  rid  of  the  notion  of  an  ideal  or  abstract  will  un- 
affected by  physical  conditions,  self-determining,  as  existing 
apart  from  the  particular  concrete  acts  of  will  which  vary 
according  to  physical  conditions.  When  a  definite  act  of 
will  is  the  result  of  a  certain  desire  modified  by  reflection, 
it  represents  physically  a  force  available  for  action,  conse- 
quent on  the  communication  of  activity  from  one  nerve- 
circuit  to  other  nerve-circuits  within  the  cortical  layers  of 
the  hemispheres ;  the  final  issue  of  the  transformation  of 
energy  being  the  impulse  of  volition.  Any  modification, 
therefore,  of  the  condition  of  these  centres  may,  and 
notably  does,  impede  reflection,  and  affect  the  resultant 


vii.]  VOLITION.  427 

power  of  will — a  power  which,  in  reality,  is  seen  to  differ 
both  in  quantity  and  quality  in  different  persons,  and  in 
the  same  person  according  to  the  varying  conditions  of 
the  nervous  substratum.  Let  a  disturbance  of  an  abdo- 
minal organ  modify  the  affective  tone  of  the  brain,  the 
will  instantly  reflects,  in  its  impaired  energy,  the  disturb 
ing  change.  Divide  the  nerve  going  to  a  muscle,  and  the 
will  issues  its  edicts  in  vain  to  the  muscle  ;  it  cannot  leap 
over  the  narrow  gap  made  in  the  continuity  of  the  nerve  ; 
for  that  which  passes  is  a  molecular  motion  along  physical 
paths,  easily  and  absolutely  barred  by  physical  hindrances 
to  conduction.  On  the  other  hand,  speaking  psycholo- 
gically, the  definite  will  is  the  final  issue  of  the  process 
of  reflection  or  deliberation  which  a  man's  life-culture 
has  rendered  him  capable  of;  it  represents  a  conception 
or  idea  of  the  result  with  desire,  such  as  have  been  deter- 
mined by  the  character  of  the  reflection.  A  man  can 
never  will  a  virtuous  end  into  whose  reflection  ideas  of 
virtue  do  not  enter,  nor  can  any  one  will  an  act  of 
vicious  indulgence  whose  appetites  or  desires  have  not 
been  vitiated,  and  whose  mind  is  not  familiar  with  cor- 
responding ideas.  The  will  appears,  then,  to  be  radi- 
cally the  desire,  or  aversion,  sufficiently  strong  to  produce 
an  action  after  reflection  or  deliberation  —  an  action 
which,  as  Hartley  observes,  is  not  automatic  primarily 
or  secondarily. *(J)  Since,  then,  it  is  generated  by  the 

*  "  Appetite,  therefore,  and  aversion  are  simply  so  called  as  long 
as  they  follow  not  deliberation.  But  if  deliberation  have  gone  before, 
then  the  last  act  of  it,  if  it  be  appetite,  is  called  will ;  if  aversion, 
unwillingness." — HOBRES. 

"In  a  series  of  valuable  articles  "On  the  Nature  of  Volition,"  in 
the  Psychological  Journal  for  1863,  Dr.  Lockhart  Clarke  enters  into 
an  able  analysis  of  the  different  forms  of  volition,  and  shows  that  in 
each  case  the  process  consists  in  the  co-operation  of  two  of  the 
psychical  elements  which  together  constitute  our  personal  integrity  ; 
namely,  the  intellectual  or  regulative  element,  and  the  aesthetic  or 
dynamic  element,  the  latter  being  either  a  sensation,  an  appetite,  or 


128  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

preceding  association,  it  must  needs  differ  greatly  in 
quality  and  quantity  according  to  the  extent  and  char- 
acter of  the  association,  as  this  has  been  established 
by  cultivation,  or  is  temporarily  modified  by  bodily 
conditions. 

Every  one  can  easily  perceive  this  to  be  true  of  the 
will  of  an  idiot  or  a  child,  which  is  palpably  a  very 
different  matter  from  that  of  a  well-cultivated  adult ; 
and  he  must  be  very  much  blinded  by  metaphysical 
conceptions  who  fails  to  recognise  the  infinite  variations 
in  the  power  of  will  which  any  given  individual  exhibits 
at  different  times  or  in  different  relations.  A  person 
whose  reproductive  organs  are  of  so  defective  a  develop- 
ment as  to  be  incapable  of  function  lacks  all  the  ideas, 
feelings,  desires  and  will  that  are  connected  with  those 
functions.  When  one  of  the  higher  senses  is  wanting  in 
any  one,  he  necessarily  wants  also  the  ideas,  feelings, 
desires  and  will  which  arise  out  of  the  perceptions  of 
that  sense.  The  blind  man  cannot  know  the  variety  and 
beauty  of  colouring  in  nature,  nor  can  he  will  in  regard  to 
those  external  relations  which  are  revealed  only  through 
the  sense  of  sight  Because,  however,  he  knows  not  what 
he  lacks,  he  does  not  consider  his  will  inferior  in  quality, 
less  complete,  or  less  free.  Were  an  additional  sense 
conferred  upon  any  one,  it  would  doubtless  soon  teach 
him  how  much  might  yet  be  added  to  the  will,  how  little 
his  boasted  freedom  is,  and  might,  perhaps,  make  him 
amazed  that  he  should  ever  have  thought  himself  free. 

When  is  it  that  man  is  most  persuaded  that  he  speaks 
or  acts  with  full  freedom  of  will  ?  When  he  is  drunk,  or 

an  emotion.  What  are  called  "  motives"  to  the  "  will  "  consist  of 
our  various  sensations,  appetites,  and  emotions,  when  subjected 
to  the  judgment  of  the  understanding  in  deliberation.  The  "  will," 
therefore,  as  a  peculiar  power,  comes  into  existence  only  at  the  time 
of  acting,  by  the  combination  and  co-operation  of  its  constituent 
elements. 


vii.]  VOLITION.  429 

mad,  or  is  dreaming.  It  may  be  a  reflection,  then,  worth 
dwelling  upon,  that  man  thinks  himself  most  free  when 
he  is  most  a  slave ;  but  at  any  moment,  in  whatever 
mood  he  be,  he  would  affirm  that  he  is  free.  A  person 
under  the  influence  of  alcohol  judges  very  differently 
from  what  he  does  when  in  his  sober  senses,  but  is  he  in 
his  own  estimation  less  free  at  the  time  ?  Passion  noto- 
riously perverts  the  judgment,  warping  it  this  way  or 
that ;  but  will  any  appeal  to  the  man  who  is  in  a  passion 
elicit  from  him  a  confession  that  he  is  not  acting  with 
perfect  liberty  ?  Place  the  very  same  arguments  before 
a  man  when  he  is  elated  by  some  joyous,  or  depressed 
by  some  grievous  event ;  when  he  is  in  the  full  flow  of 
vigorous  health,  or  when  he  is  prostrate  on  the  bed  of 
sickness  or  of  death,  and  how  different  would  be  his 
judgment  upon  them  and  his  will  in  relation  to  them : 
but  whatever  others  may  think  of  him,  he  will  hold  for 
certain  the  conclusion  of  the  moment,  just  as  a  man  in 
his  sleep  is  fully  persuaded  of  the  reality  of  his  dreams. 
While  the  looker-on  who  has  had  great  experience  among 
insane  persons  can  often  predict  how  a  madman  will  act 
under  certain  circumstances,  with  as  much  certainty  as 
he  can  predict  an  event  conformable  to  a  known  law  of 
nature, — who  thinks  himself  so  free  as  does  the  madman? 
Whence  comes  this  false  opinion?  It  arises  plainly 
from  the  cause  which  has  already  been  pointed  out : 
that  consciousness  reveals  the  particular  state  of  mind 
of  the  moment,  but  does  not  reveal  the  long  series 
of  causes  on  which  it  depends.  It  is  a  deliberate  fooling 
of  one's  self  to  say  that  actions  depend  upon  the  will, 
and  then  not  to  ask  upon  what  the  will  depends.  It  is 
as  though,  says  Leibnitz,  the  needle  should  take  pleasure 
in  moving  towards  the  pole,  not  perceiving  the  insensible 
motions  of  the  magnetic  matter  on  which  it  depends.* 

*  Speaking  of  a  stone,  which  he   supposes  to  have  a   certain 
amount  of  motion  communicated  to  it  by  an  impulse  from  without, 


430  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

As  in  nature  we  pass  from  event  to  cause,  and  from  this 
cause  again  to  an  antecedent  one,  and  so  on  till  we  are 
driven  to  a  first  cause,  so,  in  the  sincere  observation  of 
the  mind,  we  see  that  it  is  determined  to  will  this  or  that 
by  a  cause  or  motive,  which  again  is  determined  by 
another,  this  again  by  another,  and  so  on  till  we  have 
gone  through  the  whole  series  of  desires,  aversions, 
hopes  and  fears — the  sum  of  which  is  deliberation — 
that  have  preceded  the  last  desire  or  aversion  which  we 
call  an  act  of  will.  Those  who  fondly  think  they  act 
with  free  will,  says  Spinoza,  dream  with  their  eyes  open. 
Now,  if  the  final  reaction  after  deliberation,  which  we 
call  will,  is,  like  other  modes  of  reaction  of  nerve  ele- 
ment previously  described,  a  resultant  of  a  certain  mole- 
cular change  in  a  definitely  constituted  nervous  centre, 
then  all  the  design  exhibited  in  any  given  act  of  will 
must,  like  the  design  displayed  in  the  function  of  the 
spinal  cells,  or  the  cells  of  the  sensori-motor  centres,  be 
a  physical  result  of  a  particular  and  intimate  constitu- 
tion or  organization  of  nervous  matter.  In  other  words, 
the  act  of  will  which  is  the  final  expression  of  a  process 
of  reflection  must  needs  contain  a  conception  of  the  end 
desired — such  a  conception  as  has  been  determined  by 
the  nature  of  the  reflection;  the  conception  of  the  re- 


and  which  will  necessarily  advance  through  the  motion  imparted, 
Spinoza  says  :  "  Supposing  the  stone,  as  it  proceeds  in  its  motion,  to 
think  and  to  know  that  it  is  striving,  in  so  far  as  it  can,  to  con- 
tinue in  motion ;  inasmuch  as  it  is  only  conscious  of  its  endeavour 
and  by  no  means  of  its  passiveness,  it  will  believe  itself  perfectly 
free,  and  conclude  that  it  perseveres  in  its  motion  from  no  other 
cause  than  that  it  wills  to  do  so.  And  this  is  that  freedom  pre- 
cisely of  which  all  boast  themselves  possessed,  but  which  consists 
in  this  alone,  that  men  are  conscious  of  their  desires,  but  are 
ignorant  of  the  causes  by  which  these  are  determined." — Sfinoza's 
Life,  Correspondence  and  Ethics.  By  R.  Willis,  M.D.,  p.  143. 
A  falling  stone,  if  conscious,  would  doubtless  believe  that  it  was,  by 
its  will,  palling  the  earth,  though  ever  so  little,  towards  it 


VOLITION.  431 


suit,  or  the  design,  in  the  act  of  will  constituting,  in  fact, 
the  essential  character  of  the  particular  volition.  In 
order  that  desire  may  became  voluntary  action  for  its 
gratification,  a  consciousness  of  the  result  of  the  action 
is  necessary  —  that  is,  a  conception  of  the  aim  of  it  The 
desire,  therefore,  gives  the  special  impulse  which  is 
directed  or  regulated  by  reflection,  and  the  particular 
act  of  will  is  not  the  determining  agent,  but  is  the  result 
determined  by  the  impulse  acting  in  conformity  with  the 
conception  of  the  aim  to  be  attained.  The  design,  then, 
which  a  looker-on  discovers  in  any  act  of  will  —  and,  be 
it  remembered,  there  is  no  actual  volition  apart  from  the 
particular  volition  —  will  depend  upon  the  nature  of  the 
individual  whom  he  is  observing,  as  that  nature  has  been 
inherited,  and  subsequently  developed  by  the  experience 
of  life. 

The  idiocy  of  any  one,  or  his  congenital  inability  to 
adapt  himself  to  external  relations  by  correspondences 
of  internal  cerebral  reaction,  is  a  physical  fact  :  there  is 
no  design  in  many  of  the  idiot's  conscious  acts,  because 
such  quality  or  property  has  not  been  built  up  by  culti- 
vation as  a  faculty  of  the  supreme  nervous  centres,  a 
congenital  defect  of  constitution  having  made  such  orga- 
nization impossible;  in  other  words,  the  idiot  is,  by  de 
feet  of  nature,  incapacitated  from  acquiring  reflection, 
and  cannot,  therefore,  have  in  his  mind  the  conception 
of  a  result  to  be  attained,  cannot  display  conscious  de- 
sign. But  the  design  manifest  in  any  voluntary  act  of 
the  best  cultivated  mind  is  likewise  physical  necessity  : 
in  consequence  of  reacting  cerebral  adaptations  to  the 
varieties  of  external  impressions,  reflection  has,  as  al- 
ready set  forth,  been  organized  as  a  development  of  the 
supreme  nervous  centres,  or,  in  other  words,  as  a  faculty 
of  the  mind  ;  and  according  to  the  extent  and  kind  of 
the  reflection  will  be  the  completeness  of  the  conception 
of  the  end  to  be  attained,  or  the  degree  of  design 


432  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

discoverable  in  any  act  of  will.  The  particular  volition 
and  whatever  it  contains,  whether  of  folly  or  design,  is 
a  product  of  the  organized  residua  of  all  former  like 
volitions,  excited  into  activity  by  the  appropriate  stimu- 
lus. For  volitions,  like  sensations  and  ideas,  leave  be- 
hind them  their  residua  which  are  organized  in  the  nerve 
centres,  and  thus  render  future  volitions  of  a  like  kind 
more  easy.  In  this  sense  only  are  we  warranted  in 
speaking  of  abstract  volition. 

It  may  be  thought  that  too  much  has  been  said  of  the 
question  of  design,  but  it  has  been  necessary  to  lay  stress 
upon  it,  because  mistaken  notions  with  regard  to  it  ap- 
pear to  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  much  error  in  philo- 
sophy. The  design  manifest  in  a  mental  act  has  been 
supposed  to  evince  a  power  which  transcended  or  anti- 
cipated experience,  instead  of  one  which  actually  con- 
forms in  its  genesis  to  experience  ;  and  the  spiritual 
conception  of  will  as  a  fixed  and  undecomposable  entity, 
in  which  was  no  variableness  nor  the  shadow  of  a  turn- 
ing, is  greatly  indebted  for  its  origin  to  that  error.  The 
metaphysical  doctrine  of  final  causes,  which  Bacon, 
Comte,  Spinoza,  Descartes,  and  others  scarcely  less 
great,  all  agree  to  have  done  so  much  harm  in  philo- 
sophy, has  sprung  from  erroneous  views  of  the  nature  of 
design.  Instead  of  patiently  searching  out  effects  in 
nature  through  observation  and  experiment,  men  per- 
sisted for  a  long  time  in  anticipating  nature  by  divining 
ends  or  purposes  according  to  the  measure  of  their  own 
imperfect  experiences,  and  so  prevented  progress  by  set- 
ting up  these  theories  to  bar  the  paths  of  exact  investi- 
gation. Supposing  that  the  argument  from  design  as  to 
the  existence  of  will  as  a  metaphysical  entity  were 
pressed  to  its  logical  consequences,  what  must  be  the 
result?  Nothing  less  than  this, — that  the  animal,  with 
its  marvellous  instinct  of  instant  adaptation  to  the  most 
complex  and  unfamiliar  conditions,  is  possessed  of  a 


vii.]  VOLITION.  433 

higher  immaterial  principle  than  the  helpless  child  or  the 
erring  adult.  We  know  right  well,  however,  that  the  in- 
stinct of  the  animal  is  sometimes  positively  traceable  to 
the  acquired  power  of  former  generations  ;  that  it  has 
been  observably  built  up  in  the  constitution  of  the  ner- 
vous centres,  as  habit  is  daily  formed  in  the  individual, 
and  transmitted  to  succeeding  generations  as  an  innate 
endowment.  It  is  exactly  the  same  with  the  design 
which  is  formed  within  the  term  of  an  individual  life, 
and  which  ever  testifies  to  the  previous  cultivation  of 
the  individual;  the  more  cultivated  the  mind  and  the 
more  varied  the  experience,  the  better  developed  is  the 
will  and  the  stronger  its  co-ordinating  power  over  the 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions ;  not  otherwise,  in  truth, 
than  as  the  co-ordinate  reflex  action  of  the  spinal  cord 
is  developed  by  experience  and  culture.  Design,  there- 
fore, when  its  nature  is  fairly  analysed,  so  far  from  tend- 
ing to  make  the  will  a  fixed  metaphysical  entity,  goes 
really  to  prove  that  the  will  is  an  insensibly  organized 
result,  and  of  varying  value,  quantitative  and  qualitative. 
Having  now  adduced  sufficient  reasons  to  prove  that 
the  will  is  not  a  self-generating,  self-sufficing  force  of 
constant  quantity ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  force  varying 
in  quantity  and  quality,  and,  like  every  other  natural 
force,  determined  by  antecedent  causes,  I  may  proceed 
to  consider  what  power  it  actually  has  in  our  mental  and 
bodily  life.  It  is  manifestly  ordained  that  will,  as  the 
highest  mode  of  energy  of  nerve  element,  and,  when 
at  its  best,  the  supreme  co-ordination  of  all  the  complex 
energies  of  body  and  mind,  should  control  the  inferior 
modes  of  energy  by  operating  downwards  upon  their 
subordinate  centres :  the  anatomical  disposition  of  the 
nervous  system  is  in  conformity  with  what  psychological 
observation  teaches.  But  the  undoubted  fact  that  the 
will  of  a  man  can  and  does  control  inferior  functions  has 
led  to  a  very  extravagant  and  ill  founded  notion  as  to 


134  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CIIAF. 

its  autocratic  power ;  and  it  must  be  allowed  that  not  a 
little  windy  nonsense  has  been  written  concerning  its 
authority.  Assuredly  it  is  no  irresponsible  despot  in 
any  mind,  but  is  ever  most  obedient  where  it  has  most 
power ;  it  conquers  by  obeying.  Let  us,  then,  consider 
what  the  power  of  the  will  is  ( i )  over  the  movements, 
and  (2)  over  mental  operations,  the  two  departments  in 
which  its  rule  is  felt. 

i.  (a)  The  will  has  no  power  whatever  over  certain 
movements  that  are  essential  to  the  continuance  of  life. 
Not  only  do  such  motions  as  those  of  the  heart  and  the 
intestines  go  on  without  any  co-operation  of  the  will  and 
in  spite  of  any  intervention  on  its  part,  but  movements 
that  are  only  microscopically  visible,  such  as  the  contrac- 
tions of  the  small  arteries,  which  are  of  so  great  im- 
portance in  nutrition,  are  not  under  its  direct  influence. 
Nature  has  been  far  too  prudent  to  rely  upon  such  an 
uncertain  and  comparatively  late  appearing  force  for  the 
movements  essential  to  the  continuance  of  life,  or  to 
admit  its  capricious  interference :  let  a  man  try  to  as- 
phyxiate himself  by  voluntarily  preventing  the  re- 
spiratory movements,  and  he  will  learn  a  lesson  as  to  the 
impotence  of  will  which  he  might  usefully  remember 
when  studying  mental  phenomena.  I  say  nothing  here 
of  those  insensible  molecular  movements  of  the  physio- 
logical elements  which,  like  thermal  oscillations,  are  yet 
impenetrable  to  sense,  but  which  are  undoubtedly  at  the 
foundation  of  all  visible  vital  actions. 

(b)  The  will  has  no  power  to  effect  movements  that 
are  confessedly  voluntary,  until  they  have  been  very 
carefully  acquired  by  practice.  Every  one  knows  that 
the  theory  of  a  particular  skill  of  movement  is  a  very 
different  matter  from  the  practice  of  it,  and  that  the 
complete  capacity  of  performance  is  gained,  not  simply 
by  desiring  and  willing  it,  but  by  patient  exercise  and 
cultivation  ;  the  faculty  of  the  movement  is  thus  gradually 


vii.]  VOLITION.  435 

organized  in  the  proper  nervous  centre.  A  special  and 
complex  act,  never  hitherto  attempted,  will  be  as  little 
likely  to  be  done  in  obedience  to  the  commands  of  the 
so-called  "  autocrat  of  the  mind  "  as  an  act  of  flying.* 
When  volition  has  been  trained  to  the  greatest  perfection 
it  becomes  automatic :  we  never  do  a  thing  well  until  we 
have  learnt  to  do  it  without  thinking  about  it ;  and  when 
we  have  reached  this  ease  and  skill  of  execution,  if  per- 
chance our  conscious  attention  is  aroused,  the  chances 
are  that  we  boggle  and  do  badly.  It  is  the  unconscious 
element,  inborn  in  the  nature  of  the  individual,  or  ac- 
quired as  automatic  power  through  the  influence  of 
education  and  experience,  that  constitutes  the  basis  of 
character  and  conduct 

(f)  When  the  will  does  dictate  a  movement,  it  is  the 
event  which  is  determined  ;  it  sets  free,  so  to  speak,  the 
movement  which  has  been  organized  in  the  motor  nerve 
centre;  there  is  no  direct  volitional  control  over  the 
means  by  which  the  result  is  accomplished  ;  so  that  it 
may  even  happen,  and  does  sometimes  happen,  that  in 
a  man  struck  with  a  palsy  of  his  limbs  the  will,  all 
unaware  of  its  impotence,  commands  a  result  which 
never  takes  place.  Questionless,  some  would  still  not 
shrink,  in  face  of  such  an  experience,  from  affirming  that 
consciousness  never  deceives.  When  the  will  dictates 
a  certain  event,  its  power  is  propagated,  first  through 
certain  nerves,  and  then  through  them  to  certain  muscles, 
in  a  manne  of  which  we  have  no  consciousness  what- 
ever :  all  we  do  know  is,  that  if  we  wish  to  select  a 
certain  muscle  and  to  put  it  singly  in  action,  we  have 

*  "  We  know  how  slowly  the  child  acquires  the  power  of  sc 
balancing  his  body  as  to  hold  it  erect.'*  .  .  .  .  "  We  observe  how 
slowly  the  child  learns  to  perform,  with  the  requisite  precision, 
the  contractions  on  which  the  operation  of  walking  depends." 
.  .  .  .  "  There  is  another  very  familiar  instance,  that  of  learning  to 
write." — J.  MILL,  Analyst  of  the  Human  Mind,  pp.  271 — 273. 

F   F    2 


436  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

not  the  power  to  do  so,  and  that,  if  certain  movements 
have  been  habitually  associated,  it  is  a  very  hard  matter 
to  dissociate  them ;  a  thing  which  a  simple  effort  of  the 
will  certainly  will  not  do,  but  which  a  disease  like  chorea 
will  sometimes  do  in  spite  of  the  will.  Moreover,  the 
will  cannot  determine  a  motor  event  unless  the  acting 
muscles  are  guided  by  sense ;  wherefore  persons  born 
deaf  who  have  been  taught  speech  are  not  able  to 
modulate  their  voices,  but  speak  in  a  loud,  harsh,  mo- 
notonous tone,  not  having  the  sense  of  sound  to  guide 
them  to  practise  the  proper  motor  adaptations,  and  so 
to  acquire  the  requisite  delicacy  and  flexibility  of  move- 
ments. 

2.  The  extent  of  voluntary  power  over  the  mental 
operations  is  not  nearly  so  great  as  is  commonly  assumed ; 
much  the  same  thing  happening  here  as  in  its  influence 
over  movements.  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  understand 
how  this  should  be  so,  if  we  reflect  that  the  immediate 
action  of  the  will,  even  when  dictating  movements,  is 
not  upon  muscles,  but  upon  the  motor  grey  nuclei  or 
nervous  centres  of  movement ;  that  in  both  cases,  there- 
fore, the  immediate  operation  is  alike  upon  ganglionic 
cells,  which  are,  in  the  one  case,  the  associated  centres 
of  ideas,  in  the  other,  the  associated  centres  of  move- 
ments.^) 

(a)  As  the  formation  of  our  ideas  takes  place  gradually 
through  experience,  and  as  the  association  between  ideas 
is  also  organized  in  accordance  with  experience,  both 
processes  being  based  in  the  organic  life  and  beyond 
the  domain  of  consciousness,  it  is  plain  that  the  will  does 
not  determine  either  the  material  of  thought  or  the  laws 
of  the  interworking  of  ideas  :  it  must  accept  as  accom- 
plished facts,  as  organized  results,  the  ideas  and  the 
manner  of  their  association.  As  with  movements,  so 
here,  the  will  has  no  control  over  the  means  by  which  it 
works  ;  it  cannot  dissociate  firmly  established  connections, 


vu.J  VOLITION.  437 

nor  can  it  determine  a  new  train  of  ideas  without  the 
first  link  of  it  being  in  the  thoughts ;  and  when  the  first 
link,  however  originated,  is,  so  to  speak,  grasped,  the 
train  of  ideas  initiated  is  not  irregular  and  alterable  at 
will,  but  definite,  in  stern  accordance  with  an  order  and 
system  previously  established  by  cultivation.*  It  is  true 
that  as  it  is  with  the  power  of  will  over  movements,  so 
it  is  with  its  power  over  mental  states ;  it  is  a  power 
which  may  be  greatly  enlarged  and  increased  by  exercise 
and  cultivation.  While  some  persons  seem  quite  unable 
to  regulate  the  associations  of  their  ideas,  and  to  hold 
their  attention  to  a  subject  so  as  to  pursue  a  consecutive 
reflection,  others  are  distinguished  by  the  mastery  which 
they  have  over  the  subject  and  course  of  their  thoughts, 
and  by  their  powers  of  dismissing  what  is  frivolous  or 
irrelevant,  and  of  adhering  singly  and  steadily  to  the 
matter  on  which  the  mind  is  employed.  The  will,  how- 
ever, always  presupposes  definite  and  fixed  series  of  ideas 
formed  in  the  mind,  series  in  which,  without  individual 
co-operation,  one  idea  must  definitely  and  of  necessity 
follow  another  as  one  wave  necessarily  produces  another 
as  itself  disappears. 

There  is  an  order  or  a  necessity  in  the  mental  or- 
ganization of  a  sane  person,  then,  reflecting  the  order 
or  necessity  in  the  co-existence  and  succession  of  events 
in  external  nature ;  and  the  will  can  as  little  control 
the  fundamental  laws  of  the  one  as  it  can  those  of 
the  other.  The  discovery  of  a  new  fact  or  law  in  the 
operations  of  nature  by  the  man  of  science,  or  of  a  new 

*  "  Deliberation  and  investigation  are  like  the  hunting  of  a  hound  ; 
he  moves  and  sniffs  about  by  his  own  activity,  but  the  scent  he  finds 
is  not  laid,  nor  the  trail  he  follows  drawn,  by  himself.  The  mind 
only  begins  a  train  of  thinking,  or  keeps  it  in  one  particular  track, 
but  the  thoughts  introduce  one  another  successively  ....  which 
shows  they  have  a  motion  of  their  own  independent  of  the  mind, 
and  which  they  do  not  derive  from  its  action,  nor  will  lay  aside  upon 
its  command."— TICKER'S  Light  of  Nature,  vol.  i.  p.  14. 
20 


438  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

beauty  in  nature  by  the  artist  or  the  poet,  is  merely  an 
instance  of  a  new  and  more  exact  internal  adjustment  to 
external  circumstances  ;  it  is  the  evolution,  as  it  were,  of 
a  new  organ  of  sensibility  and  reaction  to  new  rela- 
tions ;  and  when  the  connection  between  the  action  from 
without  and  the  adapted  reaction  from  within  has  been 
definitely  organized  in  the  brain,  it  is  a  belief.  Certainly 
will  is  not  absolutely  powerless  in  the  mind,  any  more 
than  it  is  absolutely  powerless  in  nature ;  for  by  recogni- 
tion of  the  laws  which  govern  mental  development  we 
can  so  arrange  the  conditions  of  their  operations  as  to 
produce  secondarily  considerable  modification  of  effects ; 
and  it  may  thus  avail  itself  of  these  laws  for  its  own 
profit,  using  their  power  in  an  enlightened  manner  to 
aid  its  development  In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other 
it  conquers  only  by  obeying;  true  liberty,  as  Milton 
expresses  it — 

"  Always  with  right  reason  dwells 
Twinn'd,  and  from  her  hath  no  dividual  being." 

(V)  Thus  we  come  to  a  second  consideration  in  regard 
to  the  power  of  the  will :  it  is  that  those  who  unwarrant- 
ably exalt  it  derive  their  arguments  entirely  from  the  self- 
consciousness  of  a  well-cultivated  mind,  neglecting  alto- 
gether the  instances  of  its  simplest  manifestations.  It  is 
bare  justice  to  insist  upon  a  reference  to  the  earlier 
stages  of  development  of  cultivated  mind,  or  to  mind  in 
its  least  cultivated  state,  as  offering  the  simplest  and 
most  favourable  instances  for  the  formation  of  a  sound 
induction.  Will  any  one  be  so  bold  as  to  maintain  that 
the  young  child  or  the  idiot  has  \  olit'onal  control  over 
such  thoughts  as  it  has?  Is  any  one  so  ignorant  of  the 
genesis  of  mind  as  to  uphold  the  existence  of  true  voli- 
tion in  the  earliest  stages  of  mental  development  ?  The 
child  notably  lives  in  the  present,  and  its  actions  are 
direct  reactions  to  the  feelings  and  ideas  that  are  excited 
in  its  mind. 


m.]  VOLITION.  439 

(f)  But  as  the  individual  cannot  originate  voluntarily 
an  idea  or  a  train  of  thought  in  the  mind,  so  likewise  he 
is  unable  sometimes  to  dismiss  one  notwithstanding  an 
earnest  will  to  do  so.  A  painful  idea  will,  as  every  one's 
experience  must  have  taught  him,  return  again  and  again 
into  consciousness  in  defiance  of  every  effort  of  the  will 
to  get  rid  of  it,  just  as  a  movement  may  take  place  in 
spite  of  the  will.  The  command  which  any  one  has  over 
his  thoughts  is  very  different  at  different  times,  and  one 
person  may  be  able  to  dismiss  a  troublesome  reflection 
when  another  cannot  for  the  life  of  him  put  it  aside  ;  and 
when  he  does  so  dismiss  it,  it  is  not  any  abstract  will,  but 
he,  the  individual,  who  does  it.  We  can  give  no  exact 
reasons  for  these  variations ;  the  causes  of  them  lie  deeper 
than  consciousness  can  reach  or  will  control.  Those 
who  are  able  to  conceive  the  notion  of  a  self-determining 
will,  or  are  content  with  a  vague  and  confused  mental 
state  which  they  allow  to  pass  for  definite  conception, 
maintain  that  the  will  shows  its  autocratic  power  by 
holding  the  attention  to  a  motive  until  it  has  magnified 
it  into  the  strongest  motive,  and  by  then  electing  to  obey 
it.  But  they  do  not  tell  us  what  is  the  relation  of  this 
undetermined  and  determining  agency  to  brain  and  cha- 
racter, or  how  it  comes  to  pass  that,  notwithstanding  its 
freedom  and  independence,  it  depends  upon  cerebral 
conditions,  and  is  uniformly  the  expression  of  character 
and  circumstances. 

So  far  from  will  being  autocratic,  it  is  manifestly  at 
the  mercy  of  unknown  conditions  which  may  seriously 
affect  at  any  moment  its  power  or  energy.  Moreover, 
when  an  unwelcome  idea  is  dismissed  from  the  mind, 
it  is  not  done  by  a  simple  despotic  order  of  the  will ; 
but  by  fixing  attention  on  some  other  idea  which 
arises,  by  maintaining  the  tension  of  it,  the  latter  is 
made  consciousness ;  and  inasmuch  as  two  ideas  can- 
not exist  in  consciousness  at  the  same  time,  or  at  any 


440  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

rate  cannot  co-exist  in  equal  intensity,  that  implies  the 
dismissal  of  the  former  idea  into  the  background  and 
the  initiation  of  a  new  current  of  reflection ;  a  current 
which,  however,  is  not  uncommonly  interrupted  by  the 
irruption  of  the  old  idea  which  refuses  to  become 
latent  or  dormant.  Volitional  control  exercised  over  the 
thoughts  manifestly  presupposes  the  existence  of  many 
ideas  in  the  mind,  and  the  possibility  of  some  of  these 
latent  ones  arising  to  influence  those  that  may  be  active. 
What  power  it  is  by  which  one  idea  calls  up  another  we 
do  not  know,  but  we  do  know  that  it  is  not  by  the  will. 

Locke  is  admitted  to  have  made  a  great  advance  in 
psychology  when  he  demonstrated  that  there  were  no 
innate  ideas  in  the  mind,  but  that  all  its  ideas  were 
acquired  by  observation  and  reflection.  The  necessary 
consequence  of  his  demonstration  plainly  is,  what  the 
foregoing  considerations  have  shown,  that  there  is  no 
inborn  will  in  the  human  mind.  Let  those  who  think 
otherwise  endeavour  to  fix  that  period  in  the  child's 
mental  development  when  volition  can  be  affirmed  to 
have  distinctly  manifested  itself.  Whence  and  when 
the  first  volition  comes  would  indeed  be  perplexing 
questions  if  the  will  were  admitted  to  be  a  special 
faculty  of  the  mind,  distinct  from  other  faculties,  of  con- 
stant quality,  and  never  falling  below  a  certain  level  of 
energy.  We  are  powerless  to  fix  the  time  of  the  first 
volition,  because  the  will  is  not  one  and  constant,  but 
infinitely  variable  in  quantity  and  quality,  having  many 
nervous  centres,  and  not  having  any  existence  apart 
from  the  concrete  act.  There  are  in  reality  as  many 
centres  of  volitional  reaction  in  the  brain  as  there  are 
centres  of  idea,  and  the  operations  of  volition  depend 
as  certainly  upon  modifications  of  cerebral  substrata  as 
do  the  operations  of  ideation  and  sensation.  To  assume 
one  constant  will  is  but  a  part  of  that  metaphysical  sys- 
tem of  making  abstractions  into  entities  by  which  also 


vii.]  VOLITION.  441 

is  made  one  understanding,  one  reason,  and  the  mental 
functions  are  mischievously  parcelled  out  into  distinct 
faculties  that  have  no  existence  in  nature. 

It  is  utterly  at  variance  both  with  psychological  analysis 
of  the  nature  of  will,  and  with  physiological  observation  of 
the  constitution  of  the  supreme  nervous  centres,  to  assume 
a  single  nervous  centre  from  which  will  proceeds  ;  if  we 
must  make  a  definite  statement  on  so  obscure  a  matter, 
it  is  that  every  current  of  idea  may  be  a  current  of 
voluntary  reaction.  Let  the  active  idea  be  attended  by 
its  sympathetic  feeling,  and  the  enlightened  desire  is 
volition.  For  consider  this :  although  we  describe  the 
effect  as  ideo-motor  when  an  idea  reacts  directly  out- 
wards, yet  if  the  energy  of  the  idea  is  not  instantly  so 
expended,  but  persists  in  the  mind  for  a  moment,  a/id 
displays  relations  to  other  ideas,  so  as  to  produce  a 
clearer  consciousness  of  it  before  passing  outwards  \ito 
act,  and  especially  if  there  is  some  feeling  or  desire  at- 
tending it,  then,  when  it  does  pass  outwards,  we  com- 
monly describe  the  effect  as  volitional.  As  consciousness 
and  desire  may,  however,  exist  in  every  degree  of  in- 
tensity, it  is  plain  that  we  cannot  definitely  fix  a  stage 
at  which  ideational  reaction  may  be  supposed  to  b.-come 
volitional,  nor  determine  the  nature  of  the  change  which 
then  ensues.  Volitional  action  is  fundamentally  a  reflex  > 
or  excito-motor  process  in  which  a  cerebral  mechanism 
of  extreme  delicacy  and  intricate  complexity  of  con- 
struction, embodying  past  experiences  in  its  structure, 
intervenes  between  the  ingoing  stimulus  and  the  out- 
going movement ;  it  is,  if  I  may  use  such  an  ungainly 
compound  term,  a  complex  afferent-cerebro-efferent  pro- 
cess. A  volition  or  ideo-motor  process  which,  though 
active  in  the  brain,  stops  short  of  expression  in  actual 
movement,  or  in  the  inhibition  of  movement,  is  a  belief: 
it  is  a  certain  internal  experience  which  we  feel  and 
know  can  become  a  certain  external  experience,  if 


H*  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

necessary.  "  The  will  and  the  intelligence  are  one  and 
the  same  thing,"  was  the  corollary  of  Spinoza  from  his 
close  reasoning. 

Let  us  imagine  the  first  appearing  idea  in  the  infant's 
mind  to  react  outwards,  and  to  leave,  as  it  will  do,  its 
after-effect  in  the  nervous  centre  :  when  the  idea  occurs 
again,  there  will  be  a  tendency  to  a  similar  reaction. 
Suppose,  however,  that  the  action  causes  pain  to  the 
child,  and  that  thereupon  a  second  idea  is  formed  in 
its  mind,  the  energy  of  which  is  opposed  to  that  of  the 
first.  When  the  first  idea  recurs,  it  will,  instead  of  pass- 
ing outwards  at  once,  excite  into  activity  the  second 
idea,  which  is  inhibitory  or  preventive.*  That  is  the 
simplest  case  of  volition :  the  child  has  voluntarily  re- 
frained from  doing  something,  or  has  voluntarily  done 
something  else,  having  gained  by  its  experience  a  belief 
that  the  act  which  it  foregoes  would  be  painful ;  and  the 
impulse  that  prompted  the  choice  was  not  any  abstract 
power,  but  sprang  from  that  fundamental  property  of 
organic  element  by  which  what  is  agreeable  is  sought, 
what  is  painful  is  shunned.  Bear  in  mind,  when  weigh- 
ing volition,  that  there  is  often  more  power  demanded 
for  preventing  or  inhibiting  action  than  for  producing  it. 
As  ideas  multiply  in  the  mind,  and  groups  or  series  of 
ideas  are  associated,  of  course  the  process  becomes  more 
and  more  complicated  ;  the  residua  of  volitions,  like  the 
residua  of  sensations  or  ideas,  remain  in  the  mind  and 
render  future  volitions  of  a  like  kind  more  easy  and  more 
definite ;  abstract  or  general  volitions,  as  it  were,  are 

*  This  inhibition  in  the  highest  nerve-centres  is  just  as  mechanical 
as  that  which  we  have  seen  lo  take  place  in  the  spinal  cord,  and 
does  not  betray  any  more  mysterious  agency  in  the  one  case  than  in 
the  other.  In  the  complex  organised  union  of  nerve-centres  one 
has  the  power,  when  excited,  either  of  discharging  or  of  inhibiting 
the  activity  of  another  centre  :  it  is  a  common  physiological  function 
of  nerve-centres,  and  what  we  call  volition  is  the  subjective  aspect 
of  it  as  it  takes  place  in  the  supreme  cerebral  centres. 


Vii.]  VOLITION.  443 

formed  as  the  representatives  of  certain  trains  or  groups 
of  ideas,  or  as  the  expression  of  their  due  co-ordinate 
activity ;  and  by  their  persistence  in  the  mind,  when  not 
in  consciousness,  and  their  interaction  there,  the  charac- 
ter of  our  thought,  feeling,  and  action  is  modified  in  a 
way  which  we  cannot  comprehend.  Every  one  must 
have  felt  that  an  act  which  was  at  first  disagreeable  and 
demanded  a  painful  effort  of  will  may  become,  in  fact 
invariably  does  become,  after  several  repetitions,  much 
less  disagreeable  or  even  an  easy  habit.  Not  only,  how- 
ever, does  that  particular  act  lose  its  painful  qualities, 
but  all  acts  of  a  like  kind  or  of  the  same  genus  are  made 
easier ;  and  our  manner  of  feeling  with  regard  to  them, 
and  even  our  judgment  concerning  them,  are  greatly 
modified.  Though  we  can  give  no  explanation  of  the 
way  in  which  we  are  aided  by  the  traces  of  past  volitions, 
it  is  plain  enough  that  we  are  so  aided ;  conscious  ac- 
quisition becomes  unconscious  power ;  by  an  organic 
assimilation  of  some  kind,  even  the  will  becomes  auto- 
matic in  certain  relations. 

I  suppose  that  if  man  could  ever  succeed  in  attaining  to 
a  perfect  harmony  with  environing  nature — including  in 
that  word  the  nature  of  men  and  things  around  him — so 
as  to  perceive  and  act  in  all  relations  with  the  unreflecting 
certainty  and  precision  of  instinct,  he  would  have  neither 
memory,  nor  reason,  nor  feeling,  nor  will,  all  which  imply 
a  persistence  of  the  mental  excitation  in  consciousness,  but 
would  act  with  the  automatic  regularity,  precision  and  cer- 
tainty of  a  perfect  machine.  For  what  are  these  functions? 
Memory  is  the  conscious  recalling  of  former  experiences 
for  the  purpose  of  comparison  ;  feeling  the  pleasing  or 
painful  character  of  experiences  ;  reason  the  deliberate 
weighing  of  them — whence  are  deliberation  and  hesita- 
tion in  consciousness  ;  and  will  the  conscious  impulse 
at  the  end  of  deliberation.  Ideas  are,  on  the  efferent 
or  motor  side,  nascent  movements — that  is,  intuitions 


444  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

of  such  movements  as  have  been  performed  ;  on  the 
afferent  or  sensory  side,  they  are  images  of  the  sensory 
impressions  which  have  been  experienced,  the  revival  of 
such  sensory  impressions  on  the  occasion  of  a  suitable 
external  stimulus  being  perception.  Plainly,  then,  none  of 
these  conscious  functions — neither  memory,  nor  feeling, 
nor  reason,  nor  will,  would  be  necessary  or  be  displayed 
if  the  complete  harmony  imagined  were  realised. 

These  conclusions  may  then  be  distinctly  formulated 
from  the  foregoing  considerations  :  first,  that  wherever 
an  afferent  nerve  passes  to  a  cell  or  group  of  cells  in  the 
cortical  layers  of  the  hemispheres,  and  an  efferent  nerve 
issues  from  the  cell  or  group  of  cells,  there  is  the  possi- 
ble or  actual  centre  of  a  particular  volition ;  and,  secondly, 
that  volition  or  will,  used  in  its  general  or  abstract  sense, 
does  not  denote  any  actual  entity  which  existed  anterior 
to  experience,  but  simply  expresses  the  due  co-ordinate 
activity  of  the  supreme  centres  of  mental  force,  not 
otherwise  than  as  the  co-ordinate  activity  of  the  spinal 
cord  or  medulla  oblongata  might  be  said  to  represent  its 
will — the  faculty  in  both  cases  being  commonly  an  ac- 
quired one  in  man.  Consequently  there  is  no  normal 
volitional  power  in  the  abstract;  that  is  the  normal 
power  which  each  person  develops  for  himself  by  in- 
telligent exercise ;  and  that  will  be  the  most  perfect 
volition  in  any  case  which  expresses  the  most  perfect 
consensus  of  all  the  energies,  mental  and  bodily,  of  a 
healthy  organism.  When  an  animal  acts  in  answer  to 
some  stimulus  with  direct  and  definite  purpose,  or,  as 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying,  instinctively,  it  does  so  by 
virtue  of  an  endowment  of  its  nerve  centres  which  is  ori- 
ginal in  it ;  but  in  the  formation  of  human  volition  we 
observe  the  power  of  intelligent  action  in  gradual  pro- 
cess of  acquirement — we  witness  an  illustration  of  design 
in  the  making ;  and  if  we  only  go  far  enough  back  through 
generations,  the  acquisition  by  the  animals  may  sometimes 


vii.]  VOLITION.  445 

be  traced.  It  would  belie  observation  less  to  place  an 
ideal  entity  behind  the  innate  instinctive  impulse  of 
the  animal  than  behind  the  gradually  fashioned  will  of 
man. 

To  the  fullest  action  of  will  in  an  individual  two  con- 
ditions are  obviously  necessary  ;  first,  an  unimpeded 
association  of  ideas,  whereby  one  conception  may  readily 
call  up  another,  and  complete  deliberation  ensue ;  and, 
secondly,  a  strong  personality  or  character  to  give  the 
decision  between  conflicting  ideas  and  desires.  I  shall 
say  something  of  the  second  condition  first. 

The  strong  or  well- formed  character  which  a  well- 
fashioned  will  implies  is  the  result  of  a  good  training 
applied  to  a  well  constituted  original  nature;  and  the 
character  is  not  directly  determined  by  the  will,  but  in 
any  particular  act  directly  determines  the  will.*  Character 
in  truth  settles  not  only  what  a  person  shall  feel  and  do, 
but  even  what  he  shall  think  and  believe,  as  it  must 
needs  do  seeing  that  feeling  and  action  lie  deeper  than 
thought  and  belief.  Men  are  in  some  sort  predestined  by 
temperament  to  be  spiritualists  or  materialists,  orthodox 

*  Common  language,  Tucker  observes,  implies  two  wil's  or  more, 
opposing,  impeding,  restraining,  and  mastering  one  another  ;  when 
an  inordinate  passion  interferes  with  the  prosecution  of  some  design, 
we  still  regard  it  as  a  vo'untary  result,  because  sensible  of  the  in- 
stigation. "  But  if  we  listen  to  the  common  discourses  of  mankind, 
we  shall  find  them  speaking  of  several  wills,  several  agents,  in  the 
same  person,  resisting,  counteracting,  overpowering,  and  controlling 
one  another  ;  hence  the  so  usual  expressions  of  the  spiritual  and 
carnal  wills,  of  the  man  and  the  beast,  of  self-will  and  reason,  of 
denying  our  wills,  subduing  our  passions,  or  being  enslaved  by  them, 
of  acting  unwillingly  or  against  the  will,  and  the  like.  All  which 
takes  rise  from  a  metonyme  of  the  cause  for  the  effect  ;  for  our 
actions  being  constantly  determined  either  by  the  decisions  of  our 
judgment,  or  solicitations  of  our  desires,  we  mistake  them  for  the 
will  itself ;  nor  is  it  a  little  confirmation  of  the  will  being  actuated 
by  motives,  to  find  them  so  intimately  connected  therewith,  that  a 
common  eye  cannot  distinguish  them  apart." — Light  of  Nature,  i.  547. 


146  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  ML\'D.  [CHAP. 

or  heretic,  Evangelicals,  Calvinists,  Swedenborgians 
and  the  like.  They  are  not  moved  by  argument, 
discussion  only  feeding  conviction ;  wherefore  it  is  that 
abstract  questions,  which  are  of  no  real  moment,  are 
contested  with  the  greatest  heat  and  acrimony,  and  with- 
out altering  belief  one  jot  A  man  cannot  think  truly, 
cannot  realise  in  belief,  that  which  his  character  cannot 
assimilate,  any  more  than  the  string  of  a  harp  can  respond 
to  a  note  which  is  not  its  own,  and  is  honestly  astonished 
that  others  cannot  be  brought  to  see  things  as  he  sees 
them  :  his  range  of  thought  and  belief  is  conditioned  by 
his  inherited  ancestral  and  his  acquired  substrata.  It  is 
not  argument  addressed  to  the  understanding,  not  the  dry 
'light  of  knowledge,  which  brings  about  reform  in  belief; 
when  a  changed  feeling  has  been  engendered  through  an 
unconscious  modification  of  temperament,  either  in  the 
individual  or  through  generations,  the  reform  takes  place, 
as  a  crystal  forms  in  a  saturated  solution ;  the  conclusions 
of  reason  are  accepted  when  the  premisses  are  already 
embodied  in  the  character  or  temperament.  The  con- 
scious is  but  a  superficial  wave  moving  over  the  silent 
depths  of  the  unconscious. 

The  way  in  which  the  will  operates  upon  the  character, 
or  affects  the  ego,  is  indirectly  by  determining  the  circum- 
stances which  subsequently  gradually  modify  it;  we  may 
place  ourselves  voluntarily  in  certain  conditions  of  life  or 
submit  ourselves  to  certain  influences,  but  all  the  energy 
of  the  strongest  will  cannot  then  prevent  some  degree  of 
modification  of  character  by  them — cannot  prevent  an 
equilibration  taking  place.  In  any  future  act  of  will  the 
altered  character,  or  acquired  nature,  is  expressed  ;  and 
while  we,  perhaps,  all  unaware  of  any  change,  strenuously 
uphold  our  constancy,  a  looker-on  clearly  perceives  the 
difference.*  What  we  by  a  mental  abstraction  call  the 

*  The  quantity  of  effect  produced  upon  character  in  the  interaction 
between  the  individual  and  the  medium  in  which  he  lives  will  differ 


vn]  VOLITION.  447 

ego>  is  in  reality  a  combination  in  which  are  contained  the 
residua  of  all  former  feelings,  thoughts  and  volitions, — a 
combination  which  is  continually  changing  and  becoming 
more  and  more  complex.  That  it  differs  at  different 
times  of  life,  and  in  consequence  of  different  external 
relations,  those  who  uphold  most  zealously  its  so-called 
identity  do  unconsciously  admit  when  they  acknowledge 
that,  by  religious  influence  or  otherwise,  any  one  may  be 
made  "  quite  another  man/'  may  be  "converted,"  or  be 
"  regenerate."  The  will  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  not  the 
will  of  Paul  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles, 

The  conversion  may  take  place  gradually  in  conse- 
quence of  the  steady  operation  of  suitable  outer  influence, 
or  it  may  sometimes  take  place  suddenly  after  a  great  cere- 
bral shock,  of  epileptic  OF  other  nature.  Whosoever  re- 
flects upon  his  past  life  must  look  back  upon  scenes  and 
events  in  it  which  stand  so  far  apart  from  his  present 

much  in  different  cases.  The  character  exhibits  a  life  of  its  own, 
tending  to  its  own  development  independently  of  the  medium,  of 
such  potency  in  some  instances  that  it  makes  circumstances  conform 
to  it  rather  than  conforms  to  them,  but  in  other  instances  so  feeble 
that  it  is  lost  in  the  medium.  We  may  compare  the  effect  to  what 
happens  in  certain  experiments  on  organic  nutrition  and  absorption. 
Bone  is  known  to  be  formed  by  the  cells  of  the  internal  layer  of  the 
periosteum.  M.  Oilier  proved  by  experiments  the  autonomy  of 
these  elements  :  he  took  a  portion  of  the  periosteum  with  its  in- 
ternal layer  of  young  cells  and  transplanted  it  to  a  part  of  the  body 
where  there  was  no  boue — into  the  neck  or  under  the  skin  of  the 
back.  The  piece  developed  there  and  produced  a  bony  formation. 
The  elements  thus  exhibited  a  life  of  their  own  independent  of  the 
medium  in  which  they  were  born  and  in  which  they  were  placed. 
But  the  influence  of  the  medium  was  shown  in  their  ulterior  lot,  for 
M.  Phillipeaux  observed  that  the  new  bone  disappeared  after  a  time, 
being  absorbed.  The  proper  activity  of  the  elements  yielded  to  the 
influence  of  the  medium.  M.  Ranvier  removed  a  metatarsal  bone 
of  a  very  young  animal  and  grafted  it  under  the  skin  of  the  back. 
It  grew  at  first,  but  after  a  time  was  absorbed.  At  the  same  time 
a  new  metatarsal  bone  was  formed  in  place  of  the  one  which  had 
oeen  removed. 


W8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

personality  that  they  seem  almost  as  alien  from  him  as  il 
they  had  happened  to  some  one  else ;  he  may  feel  a  diffi- 
culty in  realising  that  his  present  ego  was  concerned  in 
them.  Memory  brings  them  back,  but  with  very  much  of 
the  feeling  of  fading  reality  which  attaches  to  dreams  that 
are  past,  the  ego  of  them  being  so  different  from  the  tgo  of 
now.  When  the  ego  is  transformed  in  correspondence 
with  changed  external  circumstances,  the  changes  are  so 
gradual  as  to  be  imperceptible  at  the  time ;  but  a  rapid 
transformation  of  the  ego  may  sometimes  be  effected  by 
a  great  event,  internal  or  external, — as,  for  example, 
when,  at  the  development  of  puberty,  new  ideas  and  im- 
pulses penetrate  the  old  circle  of  thought,  and  become 
constituent  parts  of  it,  producing  no  little  subjective  dis- 
turbance until  the  assimilation  is  completed  and  an 
equilibrium  established.  When  a  great  and  sudden 
revolution  in  the  ego  is  produced  by  an  external  cause, 
it  is  full  of  hazard  to  the  mental  stability  of  the  indivi- 
dual, and  very  apt  to  become  pathological :  nothing  is 
more  perilous  to  the  equilibrium  of  a  character  than  for 
any  one  to  be  placed  in  entirely  changed  external  cir- 
cumstances without  his  inner  life  having  been  gradually 
adapted  thereto ;  and  madness,  when  its  origin  is  fairly 
examined,  always  means  discord  between  the  individual 
and  his  circumstances.* 

*  Dr.  Channing,  in  a  sermon  On  the  Evil  of  Sin,  speaking  of  the 
absurdity  of  the  notion  that  in  changing  worlds  there  will  be  a  change 
of  character,  says  : — "  In  the  first  place,  it  contradicts  all  our  experi- 
ence of  the  nature  and  laws  of  the  mind.  There  is  nothing  more 
striking  in  the  mind  than  the  connexion  of  its  successive  states.  Our 
present  knowledge,  thoughts,  feelings,  characters,  are  the  result  of 
former  impressions,  passions,  and  pursuits.  We  are  this  moment 
•what  the  past  made  us  ;  and  to  suppose  that,  at  death,  the  influences 
of  our  whole  past  course  are  1o  cease  on  our  minds,  and  that  a 
character  is  to  spring  up  altogether  at  war  with  what  has  preceded 
it,  is  to  suppose  the  most  important  law  or  principle  of  the  mind  to 
be  violated,  is  to  destroy  all  analogy  between  the  present  and  future, 


vii.]  VOLITION.  449 

The  history  of  a  man  is  plainly  the  truest  revelation 
of  his  character ;  for  what  he  has  done  indicates  what  he 
has  willed ;  what  he  has  willed  marks  what  he  has 
thought  and  felt,  or  the  character  of  his  deliberations 
and  feelings ;  what  he  has  thought  and  felt  has  been 
the  result  of  his  nature  then  existing  as  the  develop- 
mental product  of  a  certain  original  construction  and 
a  definite  life  experience.  Objectively  considered,  the 
identity  of  the  ego  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the 
identity  of  the  full-grown  oak  with  the  first  slight  shoot 
from  the  acorn  :  subjectively  considered,  the  strong  and 
sure  conception  which  each  one  has  of  the  ego  is  not 
surprising,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  most  frequently  active 
idea,  being  concerned  with  more  or  less  consciousness  in 
every  event  of  his  life,  being  that  to  which  every  action 
has  fundamental  reference.  The  fashioning  of  the  will 
is  the  fashioning  of  the  character ;  and  this  can  only  be 
done  indirectly  by  fasohining  the  circumstances  which 
determine  the  manner  of  its  formation.  But,  however 
formed,  it  is  the  character  which  determines  what  the 
inclination  shall  prompt  as  most  desirable,  the  judgment 
decide  to  be  most  eligible,  and  the  will  carry  into  effect 
If  it  were  possible  for  any  one  to  enter  thoroughly  into 
the  inmost  character  of  another  person,  and  to  become 
exactly  acquainted  with  the  moving  springs  of  his  con- 
duct in  his  particular  relations  of  life,  it  would  be  possible 
not  only  to  predict  his  line  of  action  on  every  occasion, 
but  even  to  work  him,  free  will  notwithstanding,  like  an 
automaton,  by  playing  on  his  predominant  passions, 
interests,  or  principles. 

Secondly,  there    is    manifestly  required  for   the  free 

and  to  substitute  for  experience  the  wildest  dreams  of  fancy.  In 
truth,  such  a  sudden  revolution  in  the  character,  as  is  here  supposed, 
seems  to  destroy  a  man's  identity.  The  individual  thus  transformed 
can  hardly  seem  to  himself  or  to  others  the  same  being.  It  is  equiva- 
lent to  the  creation  of  a  new  soul." 


«o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

action  of  will  an  unimpeded  association  of  ideas,  so  that 
the  due  materials  for  the  formation  of  a  sound  judgment 
may  be  available.  But  the  ease,  completeness,  and 
character  of  such  association  depend,  as  already  shown, 
on  the  condition  of  the  nervous  element,  very  slight  dis- 
orders of  which  accordingly  quickly  declare  themselves 
in  a  deterioration  of  the  will.  The  person  who  has  long 
addicted  himself  to  alcoholic  excesses,  or  to  the  habitual 
use  of  opium,  or  to  some  other  pernicious  vices,  initiates 
a  degeneration  in  the  intimate  elements  of  nervous  struc- 
ture, which,  though  we  cannot  yet  detect  its  nature  by 
microscopic  observation,  declares  itself  distinctly  in  a 
deterioration  of  moral  sense  and  a  pitiful  enervation  of 
will ;  and  if  the  degeneration  increase,  the  further  depra- 
vation of  will  is  shown  by  the  loss  of  co-ordination  of 
mental  functions.  As  the  secondary  automatic  faculties 
of  the  spinal  centres  soon  suffer  from  any  disorder  of 
nerve  element,  and  reveal  their  suffering  in  the  loss  of 
co-ordinate  power  over  the  movements,  so  in  the  loss  of 
co-ordinating  power  over  the  ideas  and  feelings,  in  their 
irregular  and  independent  reactions,  is  revealed  the 
deterioration  of  the  will.  And  as,  when  the  disorder 
of  the  spinal  centres  is  still  greater,  all  co-ordination 
is  lost  and  convulsions  ensue  ;  so  in  the  supreme  gangli- 
onic  cells  of  the  hemispheres,  when  the  disturbance  is 
great,  there  is  no  co-ordination  of  the  thoughts  and 
feelings,  convulsive  reactions  of  the  cells  take  place,  and 
the  individual  is  a  raving  lunatic,  or  a  dangerous  one 
dominated  by  a  few  persistent  morbid  ideas.  Volition 
is,  as  it  were,  resolved  into  the  inferior  constituents  out 
of  which  it  is  in  the  due  course  of  things  compounded, 
as  a  ray  of  white  light  may  be  decomposed  into  several 
coloured  rays;  and  in  place  of  the  definite,  calm,  co- 
ordinate activity  of  well-formed  will,  there  is  the  aimless, 
irregular,  explosive  display  of  inferior  activity.  It  is 
obvious,  however,  that  even  in  the  sound  mind  the 


vi  L]  VOLITION.  451 

quantity  and  quality  of  the  volition  depend  upon  the 
fulness  of  the  reflection,  and  that  any  hindrance  to  the 
due  association  of  ideas  will  pro  tanto  affect  the  will :  if 
the  particular  volition  were  to  be  resolved  by  a  retro- 
grade metamorphosis  into  its  component  elements  there 
would  be  an  explication  or  unfolding  of  all  the  ideas  and 
desires  which  had  gone  to  form  it ;  and  going  still  fur- 
ther back  in  the  analysis,  there  would  be  a  revelation 
even  of  those  particular  relations  in  life  which  have 
helped  to  determine  the  individual's  definite  organiza- 
tion of  ideas,  the  character  of  his  ego. 

It  will  be  proper,  before  finishing  with  the  considera- 
tion of  the  will,  to  say  something  more  special  con- 
cerning the  relations  of  the  emotions  to  it  than  I  have 
done  in  pointing  out  that  the  dynamic  impulse  is  derived 
from  the  affective  life.  If  an  active  emotional  idea  reacts 
to  its  stimulus  directly  in  outward  action,  as  its  tendency 
is,  it  so  far  weakens  the  will ;  duly  controlled  and  co- 
ordinated in  reflection,  as  is  the  case  after  a  right  mental 
cultivation,  it  strengthens  the  will.  Before  many  ideas 
have  been  acquired,  and  their  multitudinous  associations 
fixed,  as  in  the  young  child ;  or  where  the  state  of  the 
development  of  the  brain  precludes  intellectual  develop- 
ment, as  in  the  idiot  and  in  the  animal, — the  emotions 
excited  immediately  expend  their  energy  in  outward 
manifestation  ;  and  when  in  the  cultivated  adult  there 
exists,  from  some  cause,  an  unstable  condition  of  nerve 
element,  or  when  the  tension  of  the  emotion  or  passion 
is  exceedingly  great,  it  will  also  react  directly  outwards 
in  spite  of  the  will :  •  the  law,  admitting  this,  would 
count  it  therefore  no  great  crime  for  a  husband  to  kill 
a  man  whom  he  surprised  in  the  act  of  adultery  with  his 
wife.  But  whosoever  takes  careful  note  of  his  own 
mental  states  may  call  to  mind  occasions  on  which  a 
suddenly  excited  emotion  prompted  strongly  a  particular 
action,  which  he  nevertheless  withstood  for  an  instant, 


452  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [ciur. 

and  might,  if  necessary,  have  forborne  altogether ;  but 
perceiving,  with  quick  intuition,  that  he  might  do  well  to 
manifest  the  emotion,  he  afterwards  allowed  the  action 
to  take  place.  The  looker-on,  perhaps,  sees  only  an  im- 
pulse and  rashness ;  and  yet  the  rashness  was  in  some 
sort  deliberate — an  indiscretion  which  served  the  end 
when  wiser  plots  might  have  failed.  Emotion  was  the 
real  motive  force,  but  it  was  emotion  acting  under  the 
direction  of  reason,  and,  therefore,  in  accordance  with 
prudent  insight  into  the  external  relations.  The  indi- 
vidual might  have  done  the  same  action  in  obedience  to 
a  calm  resolution  of  the  will,  and  better  so,  perhaps,  if 
he  had  been  operating  upon  inanimate  objects ;  but  in 
dealing  with  men  it  may  sometimes  be  that  a  prudent 
exhibition  of  feeling  much  aids  the  success  of  the  ends 
designed.  Only  let  a  man  beware  that,  however  he 
impose  upon  others,  he  deceive  not  himself  by  his  pas- 
sion, by  allowing  it  to  obscure  his  reason  and  pervert  his 
judgment :  restrained  within  the  supreme  centres,  it  is 
apt  to  do  that  in  all  minds,  and  sure  to  do  so  in  weak 
minds ;  but,  duly  subordinated  and  co-ordinated  in  re- 
flection, it  adds  force  to  resolution.  Restrained  passion, 
acting  under  the  calm  control  of  reason,  is  verily  a  most 
potent  force  ;  it  gives  a  white  heat,  as  it  were,  to  the  ex- 
pression of  thought,  an  intensity  to  the  will. 

An  emotional  person — who  is  literally  an  explosive 
person — certainly  often  produces  great  effects  in  the  world, 
and  especially  such  effects  as  are  destructive  of  some 
existing  system  or  belief;  it  is,  indeed,  commonly  their 
great  self-feeling  that  gives  to  the  reformers  their  abandon- 
ment, energy,  and  consequent  success.  But  an  evil  often 
outweighing  these  advantages  is  that  there  is  no  guarantee 
that  they  are  right ;  for,  necessarily  one-sided,  they  see 
but  a  part  of  a  truth — that  part  which  affects  their  self- 
hood most  keenly.  The  history  of  human  labours  and 
failures  furnishes  many  examples  which  teach  how  a  great 


vii.]  VOLITION.  453 

principle  has  suffered  seriously  from  the  hasty,  violent, 
and  ill-considered  action  of  its  sincere  and  earnest  ad- 
vocates :  adverse  events  or  circumstances,  which  they  in 
the  torrent  of  their  passion  could  not  recognize,  but 
which,  as  rational  beings  looking  to  the  operation  of 
causes,  it  behoved  them  to  have  recognized,  have  swept 
them  away,  and  the  truth  which  they  upheld  has  been  for 
a  while  the  victim  of  their  indiscretion.  As  in  the  mental 
phenomena  of  the  individual  the  power  of  reflection  is 
often  best  exhibited  in  the  prevention  of  action  prompted 
by  feeling — in  an  inhibitory  function ;  so  amongst  men 
in  the  social  state  the  power  of  a  good  understanding 
is  sometimes  best  shown  by  not  pressing  hotly  forward 
an  immature  reform.  But  it  is  a  very  hard  matter  for  a 
reformer  who  feels  strongly  to  perceive  that  what  is 
theoretically  desirable  and  right  may  also  practically  be 
undesirable  and  wrong  under  existing  social  conditions  ; 
he  is  apt  to  treat  adverse  circumstances  as  if  they  were 
accidents  or  anomalies  in  nature,  having  no  right  of 
existence,  and  thus  more  or  less  wilfully  shuts  his  eyes  to 
the  force  of  events  on  which  he  proposes  to  operate,  and 
which  will,  in  any  case,  operate  upon  his  principle.  He 
hurls  a  favourite  principle,  which  maybe  a  very  just  one, 
into  the  world  not  sufficiently  prepared  for  it,  not  having 
reached  the  due  level  of  its  evolution,  and  which,  there- 
fore, is  necessarily  hostile  to  it ;  and  if  his  truth  is  op- 
pressed and  seemingly  extinguished  by  the  opposition 
which  it  meets  with,  then  he  is  disheartened  and  com- 
plains, or  is  angry  and  rails.  However,  it  is  not  nature 
which  is  wrong,  if  there  be  any  wrong,  but  himself — the 
reformer.  The  fact  that  he  did  not  succeed  proves  that 
he  did  not  deserve  to  succeed ;  he  has  not  rightly 
estimated  the  character  and  weighed  the  force  of  cir- 
cumstances which  have  been  too  strong  for  his  truth, 
and  by  a  simple  law  of  nature  have,  for  a  time  at  least, 
quenched  its  light. 


454  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

A  great  advance  can  never  be  superimposed  upon 
people  miraculously;  in  order  to  be  genuine  and  last- 
ing, it  roust  be  a  natural  evolution  from  pre-existing 
events — must  grow  out  of  them ;  and  that  which  most 
effectually  demolishes  an  old  error  is  not  a  passionate 
attack  upon  it  by  the  intensely  feeling  reformer,  but 
a  new  and  better  creation,  which  quietly  undermines 
it  and  takes  its  place.  It  is  one  good  function  of  the 
conservative  instinct  in  human  nature,  by  withstanding 
change,  to  prevent  reform  taking  place  until  the  new  has 
absorbed  that  which  is  good  in  the  old — to  constrain  re- 
volution to  be  evolution.  Creation  is  a  far  higher  order 
of  work  than  destruction ;  it  is  the  quiet,  self-contained 
activity  of  definite  productive  aim — in  other  words,  of 
will  in  its  highest  development — as  opposed  to  the  ex- 
plosive and  dissipated  display  of  an  inferior  and  mostly 
destructive  emotional  force.  But  as  the  calm  intellectual 
contemplation  of  events,  viewing  all  the  relations  of 
them,  is  attended  with  no  great  spur  to  any  particular 
activity,  but  marks  an  equilibration  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  his  environment,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
excellent  a  thing  to  put  the  will  in  active  motion,  in  a 
particular  case,  is  a  passionate  feeling  or  desire  of  good 
to  be  attained  or  of  ill  to  be  shunned,  in  order  to 
establish  an  equilibration.  Then  the  will,  enlightened 
by  an  adequate  reflection  upon  all  the  co-operating  con- 
ditions, is  able  to  act  with  a  calm,  steady,  intelligent  and 
potent  energy.  However,  as  emotion  is  strongly  infectious, 
running  like  an  epidemic  sometimes  through  multitudes 
of  people,  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  with  certainty  what 
effect  the  emotional  man  may  or  may  not  produce ;  he 
sometimes  raises  a  storm  of  agitation  which  sweeps  all 
before  it,  when  reason  looking  calmly  at  the  circum- 
stances would  prognosticate  a  fruitless  labour. 

The  difference  in  quality  and  immediate  energy  be- 
tween the  will  which  is  urged  by  strong  desire  and  the 


vii.]  VOLITION.  455 

will  which  proceeds  from  a  calm  and  full  reflection,  is 
strikingly  evident  in  the  character  of  the  work  done  by 
two  kinds  of  reformers.  Surveying  the  men  who  have 
exercised  great  effects  on  the  progress  of  mankind  in 
this  capacity,  they  appear  broadly  divisible  into  two 
classes :  the  men  of  wide  intellectual  grasp,  vast  know- 
ledge, serene  feeling,  and  calm  energy,  and  the  men  of 
limited  vision,  intense  feeling,  and  impetuous  energy — 
the  extensive  or  many-sided,  and  the  intensive  or  one- 
sided men.  The  fonner,  taking  a  comprehensive  survey 
of  events,  seeing  in  them  the  simple  operations  of  na- 
tural law,  recognizing  the  character  and  the  import  of 
existing  relations,  and  the  true  value  of  the  present 
question,  which  is  often  exaggerated  by  its  immediate 
urgency,  have  their  feelings  subordinated  to  their  reason, 
and  do  not  abandon  themselves  to  an  unrestrained  im- 
petuosity. They  may  do  great  work,  but  they  do  it, 
not  like  lightning,  rapidly  and  tumultuously,  but  like 
light,  slowly,  quietly,  and  silently ;  their  work  is  con- 
structive, not  destructive ;  they  are  reformers  of  opinion 
rather  than  of  practice;  and  the  fertilizing  influence  of 
their  thought  is  felt  through  many  generations.  The 
latter,  on  the  other  hand,  are  possessed  with  a  conviction 
so  tremulous  with  intense  self-feeling  that  it  seems  the 
one  important  thing  in  the  world,  and  they  are  more  or 
less  blind  to  everything  else ;  they  put  all  their  energy 
into  explosive  action,  which,  like  lightning,  is  destructive; 
they  are  iconoclasts  who  beat  down  furiously  the  idols 
that  are  worshipped  in  order  to  set  up  others  in  their 
places ;  they  are  reformers  of  practice  rather  than  of 
thought ;  and  though  they  often  effect  a  great  imme- 
diate practical  result,  they  have  little  or  no  fertilizing 
influence  upon  the  intellectual  development  of  the  future. 
The  earnest  desire  which  inspires  their  energy  springs 
from  a  basis  of  strong  self-feeling. 

The  most  perfect  display  of  will  involves  the  full  agree- 


156  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ment  of  all  the  powers  and  dispositions  of  the  mind,  and 
is  the  expression  of  their  complete  co-operation.  If  there 
be  any  want  of  harmony  between  them,  any  feeling  or 
thought  which  does  not  work  in  entire  consent  with  the 
rest,  holding  back  like  a  stubborn  horse  in  a  team,  or 
inclining  to  deviate  from  the  track  like  a  wilful  one,  the 
act  of  will  loses  so  much  vigour  thereby ;  it  is  no  longer, 
as  it  were,  the  complete  union  of  coloured  rays  into  one 
ray  of  pure  white  light,  but  is  partially  broken  up  into 
dissentient  forces.  In  postulating  this  complete  har- 
mony of  the  mental  functions,  we  necessarily  postulate 
at  the  same  time  that  complete  harmony  of  the  bodily 
functions  which  is  perfect  health ;  so  that  the  highest 
display  of  will  is  the  expression  of  the  most  perfect 
health  of  mind  and  body.  In  order  that  the  will  on  all 
occasions  may  reach,  as  near  as  possible,  this  height  of 
excellence,  it  is  obviously  necessary  that  care  should  be 
taken  to  maintain  the  body  in  the  best  health,  and  so 
habitually  to  fashion  the  mental  character  in  relation  to 
the  circumstances  of  life  that  it  shall  be  itself  a  complete 
harmony ;  that  on  no  occasion  shall  passion  incline 
where  the  judgment  approves  not,  or  conflicting  passions 
distract  the  mind,  or  inclination  prompt  what  conscience 
condemns;  that  always  the  whole  energies  of  being 
shall  consent  in  the  will. 

Without  doubt,  will  is  the  highest  force  which  Nature 
has  yet  developed,  the  last  consummate  blossom  of  all 
her  marvellous  works.  The  natural  product  of  desire 
illuminated  by  the  highest  and  completcst  reflection,  it 
represents  the  exquisitely  and  subtly  adapted  reaction  of 
man  to  the  best  insight  into  the  relations  in  which  he 
moves.  Hence  the  vast  power  of  the  human  will  wit- 
nessed in  the  lives  of  those  eminent  men  of  practical 
genius  who  have  exhibited  its  highest  evolution.  They 
were  in  harmony  with  the  current  of  events  among 
which  they  lived  ;  co  ordinating  in  themselves  the  forces 


vii.]  VOLITION.  457 

that  were  at  work  around  them,  they  accomplished  what 
the  world  had  at  heart  in  that  age.  Thus  the  force  which 
they  displayed  was  a  force  not  their  own ;  the  power  of 
the  universe  was  behind  them,  and  they  became  the 
organs  of  its  manifestation.  Beneath  them  were  "  the 
everlasting  arms."  If  we  reflect  upon  the  way  in  which 
the  social  and  intellectual  forces  of  an  age  are  thus  co- 
ordinated in  the  work  of  genius,  and  again  upon  the 
manner  in  which  the  actions  of  the  different  nerve- 
centres  of  the  body  are  subordinated  and  co-ordinated 
in  the  manifestation  of  will, — how  there  are,  as  it  were, 
in  both  cases,  a  gathering  together  and  a  concentration 
of  different  forces  into  one  definite  mode  of  action,  a 
unifying  of  their  energies, — we  may  be  able  to  form  a 
conception,  by  help  of  what  we  can  thus  observe,  of  the 
mode  of  that  exaltation  or  transpeciation  of  force  and 
matter  throughout,  nature  which  we  cannot  follow 
through  its  inmost  processes.* 

By  the  power  of  a  well-fashioned  will  man  reacts  with 
intelligent  success  upon  the  external  world,  brings  himself 
into  a  complete  harmony  with  its  surroundings,  assimi- 
lates and  incorporates  nature,  and  thus  carries  forward  its 
organic  evolution  :  he  realises  practically  that  there  are 
not  two  worlds,  a  world  of  physical  nature  and  a  world  of 
human  consciousness,  standing  over  against  one  another, 
but  that  there  is  one  world  of  nature  whereof  his  con- 
scious life  is  an  event  The  highest  action  of  the  will  is 
therefore  truly  creative,  for  in  it  is  initiated  a  new  develop- 
ment of  nature  through  man  ;  it  adumbrates  the  possibili- 
ties of  mankind,  as  a  rudimentary  organ  in  a  lower  species 
of  animal  foretells  obscurely  the  higher  species  in  which 
it  will  have  full  development.  If  we  ask  whence  comes 
the  impulse  which  displays  itself  in  this  upward  nisus,  we 
can  only  answer  lamely  that  it  comes  from  the  same  un- 

*  Transpaiation  is  a  word  used  by  Sir  Thomas  Browne  which 
might  be  found  useful  at  the  present  day. 


458  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

fathomable  source  as  the  impulse  which  inspires  or  moves 
organic  evolution  throughout  nature.  He  who  reflects 
upon  himself  and  upon  the  universe  is  forced  in  the  end 
to  the  recognition,  in  the  workings  of  the  world,  of  a  power 
from  which  all  life  and  energy  proceed,  which  has  been 
from  the  beginning,  is  now,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
ever  shall  be,  and  which  cannot  be  comprehended  and 
controlled  by  human  thought  and  will,  but  comprehends 
and  controls  human  thought  and  will.  We  recognise  an 
impulsion  outside  ourselves,  working  also  in  our  wills, 
which  is  the  moving  energy  of  the  evolution  which  went 
on  through  countless  ages  before  man  appeared  upon 
earth,  which  is  going  on  now  in  his  progress,  and  which 
will  doubtless  go  on  through  countless  ages  after  he  has 
ceased  to  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it  We  come 
back  indeed  to  something  which,  however  we  name 
it,  or  forbear  to  name  it,  is  very  like  the  theological 
Trinity — God  the  Unrevealed  and  Unrevealable,  God 
the  Revealed,  and  God  the  Revealer.  In  human  thought 
and  will  nature  has  arrived  at  self-consciousness,  but  the 
power  which  impels  the  highest  evolution  of  life,  as  mani- 
fested in  the  highest  reach  of  human  thought  and  will, 
is  fundamentally  the  same  power  as  that  which  impels 
the  evolution  of  the  lowest  forms  of  life.  For  man  to 
seize  upon  this  power  as  it  works  in  him,  to  divorce  it 
from  the  rest  of  nature,  to  look  upon  it  as  supernatural ly 
infused  and  designate  it  free-will,  and  thereupon  to  base 
claims  for  himself  not  only  to  a  rank  infinitely  higher 
than,  and  to  a  destiny  entirely  different  from,  that  of 
anything  else  in  the  universe,  but  to  be  the  end  and 
purpose  of  creation,  may  be  set  down  as  a  proof  that 
nature,  having  reached  self-consciousness,  is,  like  a  youth 
at  the  corresponding  stage  of  development,  afflicted  with 
an  insufferable  conceit 


vii.]  VOLITION.  459 


NOTES. 

1  (/.  416). — Jonathan  Edwards  asserts  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
showing,  by  attention  to  our  own  experience,  not  only  that  the  will 
must  be  influenced  in  its  choice  by  something  that  has  a  prepon- 
derating influence  upon  it,  but  also  how  it  is  so  : — 

"  Thus,  supposing  I  have  a  chess-board  before  me  ;  and  because 
I  am  required  by  a  superior,  or  desired  by  a  friend,  or  to  make  some 
experiment  concerning  my  own  ability  and  liberty,  or  on  some  other 
consideration,  I  am  determined  to  touch  some  one  of  the  spots  or 
squares  on  the  board  with  my  finger  ;  not  being  limited  or  directed 
in  the  first  proposal,  or  my  own  first  purpose,  which  is  general,  to 
any  one  in  particular  ;  and  there  being  nothing  in  the  squares,  in 
themselves  considered,  that  recommends  any  one  of  all  the  sixty- 
four  more  than  another  ;  in  this  case  my  mind  determines  to  give 
itself  up  to  what  is  vulgarly  called  accident,*  by  determining  to  touch 
that  square  which  happens  to  be  most  in  view,  which  my  eye  is 
especially  upon  at  that  moment,  or  which  happens  to  be  most  in  my 
mind,  or  which  I  shall  be  directed  to  by  some  other  such  like  acci- 
dent. Here  are  several  steps  of  the  mind's  proceeding  (though  all 
may  be  done  as  it  were  in  a  moment)  :  the  fast  step  is  its  general 
determination  that  it  will  touch  one  of  the  squares.  The  tuxt  step 
is  another  general  determination  to  give  itself  up  to  accident,  in  some 
certain  way  ;  as  to  touch  that  which  shall  be  most  in  the  eye  or 
mind  at  that  time,  or  to  some  other  such  like  accident.  The  third 
and  last  step  is  a  particular  determination  to  touch  a  certain  in- 
dividual spot,  even  that  square  which,  by  that  sort  of  accident  the 
mind  has  pitched  upon,  has  actually  offered  itself  beyond  others. 
Now  it  is  apparent,  that  in  none  of  these  several  steps  does  the  mind 
proceed  in  absolute  indifference,  but  in  each  of  them  is  influenced 
by  a  preponderating  inducement.  So  it  is  in  the  first  step  ;  the 
mind's  general  determination  to  touch  one  of  the  sixty-four  spots  : 
the  mind  is  not  absolutely  indifferent  whether  it  does  so  or  no  ;  it 
is  induced  to  do  it,  for  the  sake  of  making  some  experiment,  or  by 

*  I  have  elsewhere  observed  what  that  is  which  is  vulgarly  called 
accident ;  that  it  is  nothing  akin  to  the  Arminian  metaphysical 
notion  of  eontingence,  something  not  connected  with  any  thing  fore- 
going ;  but  that  it  is  something  that  comes  to  pass  in  the  course  of 
things,  in  seme  affair  that  men  are  concerned  in,  unforeseen,  and  not 
owing  to  thtir  design. 


4&o  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  desire  of  a  friend,  or  some  other  motive  that  prevails.  So  it  is 
in  the  second step  ;  the  mind's  determining  to  give  itself  up  to  acci- 
dent, by  touching  that  which  shall  be  most  in  the  eye,  or  the  idea  of 
which  shall  be  most  prevalent  in  the  mind,  &c.  The  mind  is  not 
absolutely  indifferent  whether  it  proceeds  by  this  rule  or  no ;  but 
chooses  it  because  it  appears  at  that  time  a  convenient  and  requisite 
expedient  in  order  to  fulfil  the  general  purpose  aforesaid.  And  so  it 
is  in  the  third  and  last  step  ;  it  is  determining  to  touch  that  individual 
spot  which  actually  does  prevail  in  the  mind's  view.  The  mind  is 
not  indifferent  concerning  this  ;  but  is  influenced  by  a  prevailing  in- 
ducement and  reason  ;  which  is,  that  this  is  a  prosecution  of  the  pre- 
ceding determination,  which  appeared  requisite,  and  was  fixed  before 

in  the  second  step 

"  "As  the  acts  of  will,  in  each  step  of  the  fore-mentioned  procedure, 
do  not  come  to  pass  without  a  particular  cause,  every  act  is  owing  to 
a  prevailing  inducement :  so  the  accident,  as  I  have  called  it,  or  that 
which  happens  in  the  unsearchable  course  of  things,  to  which  the 
mind  yields  itself,  and  by  which  it  is  guided,  is  not  anything  which 
comes  to  pass  without  a  cause  ;  and  the  mind,  in  being  determined 
to  be  guided  by  it,  is  not  determined  by  something  that  has  no 
cause,  any  more  than  if  it  determined  to  be  guided  by  a  lot,  or  the 
casting  of  a  die.  For  though  the  die's  falling  in  such  a  manner  be 
accidental  to  him  that  casts  it,  yet  none  will  suppose  that  there  is  no 
cause  why  it  falls  as  it  does.  The  involuntary  changes  in  the  suc- 
cession of  our  ideas,  though  the  cause  may  not  be  observed,  have  as 
much  a  cause  as  the  changeable  motions  of  the  motes  that  float  in 
the  air,  or  the  continual,  infinitely  various,  successive  changes  of  the 
unevenntss  on  the  surface  of  the  water."  An  Inquiry  into  the 
Modern  preva  ling  notions  of  that  Freedom  of  the  Will  which  is  sup- 
posed to  be  essential  to  Moral  Agency,  Virtue  and  Vice,  Reward  and 
Punishment,  Praise  and  Blame,  p.  67. 

2  (/.  427). — "  Sixthly,  the  will  appears  to  be  nothing  but  a  desire 
or  aversion  sufficiently  strong  to  produce  an  action  that  is  not  auto- 
matic primarily  or  secondarily.  At  least  it  appears  to  me  that  the 
substitution  of  these  words  for  the  word  will  may  be  justified  by 
the  common  use  of  language.  The  will  is,  therefore,  that  desire  or 
aversion  which  is  strongest  for  the  present  time.  Since,  therefore, 
all  love  and  hatred,  all  desire  and  aversion,  are  factitious  and  gener- 
ated by  association,  i.e.  mechanically,  it  follows  that  the  will  is 
mechanical  also."  HARTLEY'S  7'hcory  of  the  Human  Mind, 
p.  205. 

"  Appetite,  therefore,  and  aversion  are  simply  so  called  as  long 
as  they  follow  not  deliberation.  But  if  deliberation  have  gone 


vii.]  VOLITION. 


before,  then  the  last  act  of  it,  if  it  be  appeti'e,  is  called  will ;  il 
aversion,  unwillingness.  ....  Neither  is  the  freedom  of  willing  or 
not  willing  greater  in  man  than  in  other  living  creatures.  For  where 
there  is  appetite  the  entire  cause  of  appetite  hath  preceded  ;  and, 
consequently,  the  act  of  appetite  could  not  choose  but  follow  ;  that 
is,  hath  of  necessity  followed.  And,  therefore,  such  a  liberty  as  i* 
free  from  necessity  is  not  to  be  found  either  in  the  will  of  men  or  of 
beasts.  But  if  by  liberty  we  understand  the  faculty  or  power,  not  of 
willing,  but  of  doing  what  they  will,  then  certainly  that  liberty  is  to 
l>e  allowed  to  both,  and  both  may  equally  have  it,  whensoever  it  is 
to  be  bad." — Hobbts,  vol.  i.  p.  409. 

"  The  whole  sum  of  desires,  aversions,  hopes,  and  fears,  con- 
tinued till  the  thing  be  either  done  or  thought  impossible,  is  that  we 
call  Deliberation." — Leviathan,  vii. 

8  (P-  436)' — I  extract  the  following  remarks  of  Hume  : — 

1.  "  But  do  we  pretend  to  be  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the 
human  soul,  and  the  nature  of  the  idea,  or  the  aptitude  of  one  to 
produce   the  other?  ....  We  only  feel  the  event,  namely,  the 
existence  of  an  idea,  consequent  to  a  command  of  the  will.     But  the 
manner  in  which  Ihis  operation  is  performed,  the  power  by  which  it 
is  produced,  is  entirely  beyond  our  comprehension." 

2.  "  The  command  of  the  mind  over  itself  is  limited  as  well  as 
its  command  over  the  body ;  and  these  limits  are  not  known  by 
reason.  ....  Will  any  one  pretend  to  assign  the  ultimate  reason 
of  these  boundaries,  or  show  why  the   power  is  deficient  in  one 
case,  not  in  another  ?  " 

3.  "  Self-command  is    very  different  at  different  times 

Can  we  give  any  reason  for  these  variations,   except  experience? 
Is  there  not  here,  either  in  a  spiritual  or   material    substance,  or 
both,  some  secret  mechanism  or  structure  of  parts,  upon  which  the 
effect  depends,  and  which,  being  entirely  unknown  to  us,  renders 
the  power  or  energy  of  the  will  equally  unknown  and  incomprehen- 
sible?" 

4.  "  The  motion  of  our  body  follows  upon  the  command  of  our 
will.     Of  this  we  are  every  moment  conscious.     But  the  means  by 
which  this  is  effected,  the  energy  by  which  the  will  performs  so  ex- 
traordinary an   operation  ;  of  this  we  are  so  far  from  being  imme- 
diately conscious,  that  it  must  for   ever  escape  our  most  diligent 
inquiry." 

After  explaining  that  volition  does  not  act  directly  on  a  limb 

itself,  but  through  certain  muscles  and  nerves,  through  which  the 

motion  is  successively  propagated,  he  asks — "  Can  there  be  a  more 

certain  proof  that  the  power  by  which  this  whole  operation  is  per- 

21 


462  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.     [CHAP.  vii. 

formed,  so  far  from  being  directly  and  fully  known  by  an  inward 
sentiment  or  consciousness,  is  to  the  last  degree  mysterious  and  un- 
intelligible. Here  the  mind  wills  a  certain  event ;  immediately 
another  event  unknown  to  ourselves,  and  totally  different  from  the 
intended,  is  produced.  This  event  produces  another  equally  un- 
known ;  till,  at  last,  through  a  long  succession,  the  desired  event  is 
produced." — Inquiry  contenting  the  Human  Understanding. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MOTOR    NERVOUS  CENTRES   OR  MOTORIUM  COM- 
MUNE, AND  ACTUATION  OR  EFFECT! ON. 

THUS  far  I  have  been  engaged  in  considering  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mental  organization,  as  it  takes  place  in 
the  production  of  simple  or  presentative  ideas  out  of 
sensory  impressions,  with  their  associated  motor  reac- 
tions,— that  is,  in  apprehension ;  in  the  production  of 
representative  ideas  or  conceptions  by  abstraction  from 
the  simple  ideas, — that  is,  in  comprehension  ;  and  in  the 
production  of  volition  as  the  result  of  the  complex  inter- 
working  of  desires  and  conceptions.  But  it  is  not  man's 
function  in  life  merely  to  think  and  feel ;  his  inner  life 
he  must  express  or  utter  in  action  of  some  kind.  In  all 
animals  there  is  an  instinct  or  impulse  to  perform  move- 
ments, either  spontaneously  or  in  answer  to  conscious  and 
unconscious  stimuli;  for  bodily  exercise  is  necessary  to  the 
procuring  of  food,  to  the  preservation  of  health,  and  to 
defence  against  their  enemies.  When  there  is  no  exercise 
of  the  proper  movements,  sensations  of  discomfort  and 
restlessness  are  produced  which  impel  the  animal  to  per- 
form movements  in  order  to  obtain  relief  from  the 
discomfort  which  is  felt,  and  to  procure  the  agreeable 
sensations  which  will  follow  activity.  After  exertion 
there  is  an  instinct  for  repose ;  the  energy  stored  up 
by  nutrition  in  the  nervous  centres  having  been  spent, 
and  requiring  renewal.  The  instincts  to  movements  in 


464  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  different  organs  with  which  animals  are  thus  furnished 
to  fulfil  the  ends  of  their  life  produce  the  habits  and 
actions  of  their  so-called  animal  life,  and  the  movements 
are  really  complex  manifestations  of  sensori-motor  action. 
Just  as  centripetal  and  centrifugal  nerve  fibres  united  by 
nerve  cells  and  commissural  fibres  are  the  simple  elements 
out  of  which  the  complicated  structure  of  the  nervous 
system  is  built  up,  so  sensation  and  motion  are  the  simple 
functional  units  from  which  the  complex  mental  processes 
are  evolved.  The  natural  consequence  of  a  sensation  is 
a  movement,  which  follows  necessarily,  unless  it  be  inhi- 
bited, or  unless  it  be  transformed  into  an  equivalent 
activity,  as  happens  when  its  energy  is  expended  in 
acting  upon  the  blood-vessels  and  affects  secretion  and 
nutrition. 

It  is  evident  then  that  there  are  other  residua  besides 
those  which  have  already  been  specially  dealt  with,  which 
enter  as  constituents  into  his  mental  life — the  residua, 
namely,  that  are  left  behind  by  movements  or  actions. 
The  movements  that  are  instigated  or  actuated  by  a 
particular  nerve  centre  do,  like  the  ideas,  leave  behind 
them  their  residua,  which,  after  several  repetitions,  be- 
come so  completely  organized  into  the  nature  of  the 
nerve  centre  that  the  movements  may  henceforth  be 
automatic.  There  is  then,  intervening  between  the 
volitional  impulse  and  the  action,  a  department  or  re- 
pository of  motor  residua,  in  which  exist  the  immediate 
agents  of  movements — a  region,  psychologically  speaking, 
of  abstract,  latent,  or  potential  movements.  If  recourse 
be  had  to  physiology,  it  is  found  that,  conformably  with 
what  psychological  analysis  teaches,  there  are  numerous 
special  motor  nervous  centres,  or  nuclei  of  ganglionic 
cells,  cerebral  and  spinal,  from  which  motor  nerves  pro- 
ceed, and  by  the  experimental  irritation  of  which  move- 
ments may  be  artificially  excited.  These  motor  centres 
have  their  special  connections,  by  means  of  internunciant 


VIM.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  465 

fibres,  with  regions  of  the  anterior  convolutions  of  the 
brain,  so  that,  as  recent  experiments  have  shown,  the 
definite  movements  may  be  excited  by  stimulation  of  the 
cortical  representatives.  As  the  sovereign  deals  with  his 
subjects  through  their  representatives,  so  the  will  deals 
with  movements  through  their  representative  centres  in 
the  convolutions.  The  term  which  I  have  taken  leave 
to  use  for  the  purpose  of  designating,  psychologically, 
the  common  centres  of  movement  is  the  motoriutn 
commune. 

This  region  of  motor  residua,  or,  as  I  have  ventured 
to  call  it,  this  motoriutn  commune,  is  related  to  concep- 
tion on  the  reactive  side  of  human  life,  as  sensation  is 
on  the  receptive  side.  As  the.  residua  of  sensorial  acti- 
vity, as  already  seen,  minister  and  are  necessary  to  a 
definite  representative  conception,  so  the  residua  of 
motorial  activity  in  their  turn  enter  essentially  into  con- 
ception, and  are  indispensable  to  its  realization  in  action. 
It  may  not  be  amiss,  then,  to  take  notice  here,  again, 
how  the  highest  mental  action  comprehends  or  contains 
the  whole  bodily  life.  The  sensory  life  enters  essentially 
into  conception  ;  the  organic  life,  as  previously  set  forth, 
participates  in  the  emotional  quality  of  it ;  and  the 
motorial  activity  of  the  body  is  essential  to  its  exact 
definition  and  outward  expression.  How  mischievously 
unjust,  then,  is  the  absolute  barrier  set  up  between  mind 
and  body !  How  misleading  the  parcelling  out  of  the 
mind  into  separate  faculties  that  answer  to  nothing  in 
nature ! 

What  name  may  most  properly  be  given  to  this  neg- 
lected but  important  motorial  region  of  our  mental  life  ? 
The  motor  residua  that  mingle  in  our  conceptions  have 
been  called,  in  Germany,  motor  intuitions  or  percepts 
(Bewegungs-anschauungen).  This  name  is  applicable 
only  to  those  motor  substrata  that  are  concerned  in 
voluntary  movements — those  the  functions  of  which 


466  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

intervene  between  volitions  and  acts  and  which  may  be 
excited  by  stimulation  of  the  cortical  representative 
motor  centres.  But  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the 
subordinate  motor  ganglia  are  the  real  motor  centres, 
containing  the  organized  faculties  of  the  different  move- 
ments, and  that  these  may  be  excited  to  action  by  a 
sensational  or  reflex  stimulus  as  well  as  by  an  impulse 
from  the  hemispheres.  In  this  case  it  plainly  would  not 
be  proper  to  speak  of  motor  intuitions  or  percepts  :  it  is 
only  when  the  impression  of  the  definite  movement  has 
been  conveyed  upwards  to  the  frontal  brain  that  the 
motor  intuition  is  produced.  The  whole  region  of  motor 
residua  might  be  described  generically  as  the  department 
of  actuation;  a  department  containing  the  powers  or 
faculties  through  which  the  nervous  centres,  when  excited 
to  activity,  act  upon  the  muscular  system,  and,  by  thus 
uttering  or  expressing  their  energies,  restore  the  equili- 
brium between  the  individual  and  the  environment. 
It  contains  the  means  by  which  will,  idea,  or  sensation 
actuates  definite  movements,  or  prevents  their  occur 
rence.  To  give  the  name  of  locomotive  faculty  to  this 
province  of  mind  would  land  us  in  the  inconsistency  of 
denominating  locomotive  an  agency  which  often  acts  to 
inhibit  or  prevent  motion. 

However  it  be  named,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such 
a  region  of  mental  activity  exists,  and  that  in  it  are  con- 
tained, fashioned  and  co-ordinated,  the  faculties  of 
different  groups  and  series  of  movements.  It  is  easy 
to  perceive  why  will  can  only  determine  the  result 
when  it  dictates  an  act,  and  cannot  determine  the  ac- 
tion of  a  particular  muscle,  or  the  combined  actions  of 
certain  muscles  which  have  not  acted  together  before. 
All  it  does  is  to  let  loose,  as  it  were,  the  proper  agency 
in  the  motor  centre;  and  this  is  done  by  willing  the 
event,  which  it  is  enabled  to  do  by  means  of  the  proper 
motor  intuition.  When  I  "will  to  utter  a  certain  word,  I 


vni.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  467 

will  the  event,  the  complex  articulating  movements  being 
possible  to  me  only  through  the  medium  of  the  proper 
motor  intuition.  The  impulse  plus  the  special  motor 
intuition  constitutes  the  particular  volition.  A  voluntary 
movement  is  truly  a  reflex  act  in  the  cortical  centres  of 
Vie  brain  ;  differing  from  the  lower  reflex  movements  in 
.hese  circumstances — first,  that  it  does  not  immediately 
follow  the  stimulus,  but  is  caused  by  the  excitation  of 
many  associated  sensory  residua  which  have  been  laid 
up  in  consequence  of  former  experiences ;  and,  secondly, 
that  it  contains  or  evinces  a  distinct  adaptation  to  an  end 
or  purpose,  by  reason  of  the  excitation  of  associated  motor 
residua  which  have  been  organized  effects  of  former 
adjustments.  If  the  result  wished  is  a  new,  unfamiliar 
one,  no  residua  thereof  from  previous  experiences  exist- 
ing in  the  motor  centres,  then  the  will  is  unequal  to  the 
accomplishment  of  it ;  there  is  not  an  exact  and  definite 
idea  of  the  end  to  be  effected,  the  necessary  motor  in- 
tuition being  wanting.  After  repeated  trials,  the  desired 
skill  is  firmly  acquired,  and  the  movement  is  thenceforth 
automatic,  the  motor  intuition  having  been  gradually 
organized  in  the  proper  nervous  centres :  the  result 
stored  up  strictly  corresponds  with  that  which  in  other 
nervous  centres  we  describe  as  abstract  idea.  It  is  pro- 
bable that  the  so-called  motor  centres  in  the  cerebral 
convolutions  are  really  the  centres  of  these  motor  in- 
tuitions ;  in  other  words,  they  are  the  centres  in  which 
the  subordinate  motor  centres  act  upon  consciousness, 
and  they  thus  constitute  the  physiological  agency  of 
voluntary  movements. 

In  animals  the  motor  intuitions,  like  their  other  facul- 
ties, are  mostly  innate.  There  are  no  distinct,  clear 
conceptions  accompanying  their  instinctive  actions  ;  but 
obscure  sensations  and  feelings  excite  the  motor  centres, 
which  then  determine  the  action  of  the  proper  muscles. 
In  man,  on  the  other  hand,  although  the  faculties  of 


&  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

certain  co-ordinate  movements  do  exist,  preformed  in  the 
nervous  centres,  the  motor  faculties  are  mostly  acquired ; 
in  this  regard  corresponding  with  the  formation  of  his 
other  mental  faculties.  Our  ideas  of  distance,  size,  and 
solidity  furnish  striking  examples  of  the  manner  in  which 
we  are  indebted  to  our  motor  intuitions,  and  of  the  dif- 
ference in  respect  of  them  between  us  and  the  animals. 
The  young  swallow's  intuition  of  distance  appears  to  be 
as  perfect  when  it  begins  to  fly  as  it  is  after  a  life-experi- 
ence ;  but  it  is  not  so  with  the  young  child,  which  cannot 
for  some  time  tell  how  distant  or  how  near  an  object  is. 
In  the  first  instance,  the  child's  body  moves  with  the 
eyes,  when  these  are  fixed  upon  a  light  that  is  moved 
about  before  it  After  a  few  weeks  the  moving  light  is 
followed  by  a  motion  of  the  head  only;  next  the  eye-ball 
itself  is  turned  also;  and  ultimately  objects  are  followed 
with  the  eye  without  any  motion  of  the  head.  As  this  is 
going  on,  a  recognition  of  the  position  and  distance  of  an 
object  is  acquired  gradually,  and  the  convergence  of  the 
axes  of  the  eyes  is  seen  to  change  regularly  and  quickly 
with  the  approach  of  the  object  to,  or  its  removal  from, 
the  eyes. 

Now  it  is  well  known  that  the  accommodation  of  the 
eyes  to  distance  is  effected,  for  near  objects,  by  a  con- 
vergence of  their  axes  and  an  accommodation  of  their 
lenses,  two  actions  which  are  from  the  first  very  firmly 
associated ;  so  much  so  that  a  congenital  defect  in  the 
lens  is  now  recognised  to  be  the  frequent  cause  of 
squinting  in  children.  And  it  is  quite  possible,  by  expe- 
rimentally modifying,  by  the  use  of  suitable  glasses,  the 
customary  consentaneous  convergence  of  the  axes,  to 
deceive  perception  and  to  cause  it  to  be  a  false  induction 
concerning  the  object  It  infers  certain  things  from  cer- 
tain movements,  and  when  these  are  deranged  it  makes 
false  inferences  for  a  time.  But  these  accommodating 
movements  of  the  eye  are  not  determined  by  any  act  of 


vtil.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  469 

will,  nor  are  they  within  consciousness ;  they  are  con- 
sensual movements  in  respondence  to  the  visual  sensa- 
tion, and  strictly  comparable  with  the  instinctive  move- 
ments of  the  animals.  It  is  not  the  visual  sensation 
directly  which  gives  us  the  idea  of  intuition  of  distance, 
but  the  motor  intuition  of  the  accommodating  movement 
in  association  with  the  visual  impression,  which,  though 
uncertain  and  confused  at  first  in  man,  soon  gets  precision 
and  distinctness.  And,  after  all,  it  gets  this  precision  and 
distinctness  in  so  short  a  time  only  because  it  inherits  an 
anatomical  mechanism  which  represents  the  accumulated 
experiences  of  countless  ancestors  :  if  the  individual 
were  obliged  to  acquire  it  himself  from  the  foundations, 
all  his  life  would  not  suffice  for  the  work. 

In  this  example  we  have  a  type  of  that  which  happens, 
with  greater  or  less  rapidity,  in  the  case  of  every  movement 
in  the  body.  The  infant  at  first  kicks  out  its  leg — whether 
from  a  so-called  spontaneous  outburst  of  energy,  or  by 
reason  of  some  organic  or  of  some  external  stimulus, 
matters  not — and  bringing  it  in  contact  with  some  ex- 
ternal object,  gets  thereby  a  sensation,  in  respondence  to 
which,  as  in  the  consensual  accommodation  of  the  eyes, 
adaptations  of  movements  take  place,  and  muscular 
intuitions  are  more  or  less  quickly  and  completely 
organized.*  There  is  a  fusion  of  different  local  sensa- 
tions with  different  muscular  feelings  ;  certain  sensations 
and  certain  movements  are  thus  associated,  and  the 
residua  of  the  muscular  movements,  or  the  motor  intui- 
tions, are  henceforth  essential  constituents  of  our  mental 
life,  whether  we  are  distinctly  conscious  of  them  or  not. 

Consider,  if  further  illustration  be  needed,  the  gradual 

*  The  innate  mechanism  soon  comes  into  action,  being  in  a  state 
of  waiting  preparation,  so  to  speak,  to  respond  to  the  suitable 
stimulus.  As  Sir  C.  15ell  remarked,  an  infant  evinces  an  apprehen- 
sion of  falling  while  it  is  still  in  the  nurse's  arms.  A  young  kitten 
will  stretch  its  neck  in  search  of  the  teat  when  it  is  only  half  born. 


170  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

acquisition  of  the  complex  movements  of  speech, 
and  the  intimate  connection  which  they  have  with  the 
formation  of  our  conceptions.  We  acquire  articulate 
speech  through  imitation  of  the  sounds  of  words ;  the 
sensory  residua  of  the  sound  of  the  word  are  associated 
by  practice  with  definite  muscular  articulating  move- 
ments ;  the  motor  intuitions  are  thus  organized  in  their 
proper  centres  ;  and  these  motor  intuitions  may  then  be 
excited,  and  give  expression  to  ideas,  by  stimuli  pro- 
ceeding from  the  associated  sensory  residua  of  other 
senses  than  sound.  Thus  the  sight,  or  touch,  or  taste 
of  an  object  will  excite  the  proper  word  without  inter- 
vention of  the  auditory  residua,  when  speech  has  been 
learned.  A  weak-minded  person,  or  a  person  of  low 
cultivation,  often  cannot  content  himself  with  the  mental 
representation  of  a  word,  or  clearly  comprehend  a  ques- 
tion put  to  him,  without  bringing  the  actual  movement 
to  his  assistance ;  he  must  utter  the  word  or  repeat  the 
question  aloud,  in  order  to  get  his  conception  distinctly. 
Education  consists  fundamentally  in  the  association 
of  certain  definite  sensory  currents,  excited  by  ex- 
ternal impressions,  with  certain  definite  motor  currents, 
which  are  the  adapted  reactions  of  the  individual  to 
the  impressions  which  affect  him.  No  wonder  then 
that  we  find  so  much  automatic  action  when  we  look 
closely  into  the  mental  processes  of  men  ;  the  whole 
aim  of  education  on  the  part  of  one  generation  being 
to  produce  upon  the  next  generation  the  same  impres- 
sions which  it  has  experienced,  and  to  teach  the  same 
reactions  which  it  has  performed.  It  is  most  neces- 
sary, however,  to  guard  against  the  strong  disposition 
which  there  is  to  look  upon  certain  movements,  those  of 
the  eye  and  the  tongue,  as  having  a  special  connection 
with  the  mental  life  which  other  movements  of  the  body 
have  not ;  they  have  a  specially  intimate  connection,  but 
not  a  special  kind  of  connection.  Unwarrantably  sepa- 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  471 

rating  by  an  absolute  barrier  the  mind  from  the  body, 
and  then  locating  it  in  a  particular  corner  of  the  latter,  as 
is  commonly  done,  we  are  prone  to  forget  that  in  mental 
action  the  whole  bodily  life  is  comprehended — that  what 
is  displayed  outwardly  exists  in  the  innermost — that  every 
motor  intuition  has  its  essential  place  and  influence  in 
our  mental  life. 

It  is  not  without  instruction  to  note  how  very 
far  the  limit  of  possible  utterance  by  speech  is  from 
being  reached.  Of  the  possible  sounds  which  man  is 
able  to  pronounce  and  distinguish  a  great  variety  is 
never  made  use  of.  "  Each  language  or  dialect  of  the 
world  is  found  in  practice  to  select  a  limited  series  of 
definite  vowels  and  consonants,  keeping  with  tolerable 
exactness  to  each,  and  choosing  what  may  be  called  its 
phonetic  alphabet."  *  In  the  different  languages  of  the 
world  there  is  an  abundant  variety  of  sounds,  many  of 
which  are  now  used  to  express  the  same  ideas,  but  which 
might,  if  need  were,  be  used  at  some  future  time  to 
express  the  new  ideas  and  feelings  which  mankind  will 
presumably  acquire.  Moreover,  as  Mr.  Tylor  has  re- 
marked, there  are  many  sounds  capable  of  being  used  in 
articulate  speech,  such  as  varieties  of  chirping,  blowing, 
hissing,  whistling,  &c.,  which  no  tribe  is  known  to  have 
brought  into  their  alphabet.  Meanwhile  we  are  very  far 
from  having  exhausted  the  resources  of  the  English 
alphabet.  It  appears  that  if  the  combinations  of  the 
twenty-six  letters  of  the  English  alphabet  were  free,  "  so 
that  any  letter  could  be  indifferently  sounded  with  any 
other,  the  number  of  words  which  could  be  formed  with- 
out any  repetition  would  be  226 — i,  or  67,108,863."! 
But  as  the  formation  of  our  vocal  organs  is  such  as  to 
prevent  us  using  the  greater  part  of  these  conjunctions  of 
letters,  inasmuch  as  at  least  one  vowel  must  be  presenf 

*  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  L  p.  155. 
t  Jevons's  Principles  of  Science,  vol.  i.  p.  197. 


172  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

in  each  word  and  more  than  two  consonants  cannot 
usually  be  brought  together,  the  actual  number  of  avail- 
able words  is  100,000;  an  ample  store  for  the  present, 
seeing  that  Shakespeare  uses  no  more  than  15,000,  a 
person  of  ordinary  cultivation  between  3,000  and  4,000, 
and  an  agricultural  labourer  only  about  300. 

In  continuation  of  the  foregoing  exposition  of  the 
agency  of  motor  residua  in  mental  function,  let  me  direct 
attention  to  their  mental  effects  when  they  have  been 
directly  excited.  In  that  condition  which  Mr.  Braid 
called  "hypnotism," it  has  been  pointed  out  already  that 
if  the  face  or  limbs  of  the  patients  are  placed  in  an  atti- 
tude which  is  the  normal  expression  of  a  certain  emotion, 
thereupon  that  emotion  is  actually  excited;  the  motor 
intuition  immediately  awakening  the  appropriate  con- 
ception. This  is  in  accordance  with  what  we  frequently 
observe  in  watching  the  genesis  of  mind  in  young  chil- 
dren, where  it  is  plain  that  an  attitude  or  gesture,  uncon- 
sciously or  involuntarily  evoked,  sometimes  awakens  iu 
the  mind  the  correlative  idea  or  emotion,  and  where,  on 
the  other  hand,  every  thought  is  immediately  translated 
into  some  movement.* 

It  was  taken  notice  of  by  Mr.  Burke  that  when  the 
body  is  disposed  by  any  means  whatsoever  to  such  emo- 
tions as  it  would  acquire  by  means  of  a  certain  passion,  it 
will  of  itself  excite  something  very  like  that  passion  in 
the  mind.  And  he  relates  in  confirmation  a  curious  story 
told  of  the  celebrated  physiognomist  Campanella : — 
"  This  man,  it  seems,  had  not  only  made  very  accurate 
observations  on  human  faces,  but  was  very  expert  in 
mimicking  such  as  were  any  way  remarkable.  When  he 
had  a  mind  to  penetrate  into  the  inclinations  of  those  he 

*  Vulpian  (op.  cil.  p.  290)  formularizes  the  general  physiological 
law,  that  every  excitation  of  a  nerve,  at  any  point  in  its  length,  is 
transmitted  immediately  and  simultaneously  both  in  a  centripetal 
and  centrifugal  direction. 


vi I1.J  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES,  473 

had  to  deal  with,  he  composed  his  face,  his  gesture,  and 
his  whole  body,  as  nearly  as  he  could,  into  the  exact  simili- 
tude of  the  person  he  intended  to  examine  ;  and  then  care- 
fully observed  what  turn  of  mind  he  seemed  to  acquire 
by  this  change.  So  that,  says  my  author,  he  was  able  to 
enter  into  the  dispositions  and  thoughts  of  people  as 
effectually  as  if  he  had  been  changed  into  the  very  men."* 
Let  any  one  make  the  experiment  of  fixing  the  coun- 
tenance in  the  expression  of  a  certain  passion,  and,  while 
retaining  that  expression,  of  trying  to  call  up  in  the  mind 
a  quite  different  passion ;  he  will  find  it  impossible  to 
succeed  until  he  alters  the  expression  of  his  face. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  this  relation  that  these  physiog- 
nomical expressions  of  the  emotions  are  not  really  invented 
by  the  emotions  which  they  express.  The  physiological 
mechanism  which  subserves  them  is  innate  in  the  indi- 
vidual, having  been  inherited  by  him  as  heir  of  the 
organized  experiences  of  the  race ;  wherefore  the  mus- 
cular expression  of  a  passion  is  uniform  in  different  per- 
sons, and  may  be  excited  into  action  before  the  feeling 
of  which  it  afterwards  seems  to  become  a  necessary  part. 
The  smile  on  an  infant's  cheek,  which  in  after  years  cor- 
responds with  pleasurable  emotions,  is,  as  Sir  C.  Bell 
remarked,  oftenest  first  seen  when  it  is  asleep,  and  is 
ascribed  by  the  sage  nurse  to  internal  convulsions  or 
irritation.  Here  the  definite  muscular  action  precedes 
the  development  of  the  mental  state  with  which  it  is 
afterwards  firmly  associated.  One  observes  the  same 
thing  sometimes  on  the  face  of  a  dying  person,  when  the 

*  Essay  OH  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,  p.  261.  "I  have  often 
observed,"  he  says,  "that  on  mimicking  the  looks  and  gestures  of 
angry,  or  placid,  or  frightened,  or  daring  men,  I  have  involuntarily 
found  my  mind  turned  to  that  passion  whose  appearance  I  en- 
deavoured to  imitate  ;  nay,  I  am  convinced  it  b  hard  to  avoid  it, 
though  one  strove  to  separate  the  passion  from  its  correspondent 
gtslures." 


474  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHA?. 

flitting  smile,  which  might  at  the  first  glance  seem  to 
denote  a  happy  thought,  or  the  frown  which  would  seem 
to  mark  a  painful  thought,  is  plainly  the  passing  effect  of 
some  internal  irritation.  Here  the  special  action  of  the 
features  has  survived  the  decay  of  the  conscious  state. 
I  pointed  out  in  a  former  chapter  how  essential  a 
part  the  internal  organs  of  the  body  play  in  the  produc- 
tion of  the  passions,  and  how  probable  it  is  that  the 
uniformity  of  passions  among  mankind  is  due  to  the 
uniform  operation  of  these  organs  upon  the  brain ;  it  is 
now  seen  that  the  motor  expressions  of  the  passions  may 
be  produced  by  stimuli  from  the  internal  organs  before 
the  development,  and  after  the  extinction,  of  the  con- 
scious mental  states ;  the  question,  then,  may  fairly  be 
raised  whether  the  development  of  the  conscious  mental 
state  is  not  in  great  measure  owing  to  this  sensori- 
motor  activity  of  the  organic  life.  When,  for  instance, 
the  infant,  immediately  after  its  birth,  performs  the 
movements  of  sucking  as  a  purely  reflex  operation,  it  is 
presumed  to  have  no  more  conscious  feeling  of  the  act 
than  the  anencephalic  infant  which  does  the  same  thing; 
but  is  it  not  probable  that  the  operation  awakens  in  its 
mind  by  degrees  the  appropriate  conscious  state,  the 
current  of  sensori-motor  activity  exciting  centripetally 
its  representative  current  in  the  convolutions,  and  that  it 
acquires  by  this  means  the  knowledge  and  the  feeling 
of  pleasure  which  are  afterwards  associated  with  the  con- 
scious gratification  of  the  appetite  for  food  ?  At  an  early 
period,  when  the  feeble  muscles  of  the  arms  and  legs  can 
hardly  make  a  few  indefinite  movements,  the  muscles  of 
the  face,  Cabanis  has  remarked,  already  express,  by  dis- 
tinct movements,  nearly  all  the  series  of  general  feelings 
peculiar  to  human  nature,  so  that  the  attentive  observer 
easily  recognises  in  the  picture  the  characteristic  traits  of 
the  future  man.  It  is,  he  says,  not  in  external  impressions 
that  the  causes  of  such  complicated  movements  are  to  be 


via.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  475 

found,  for,  with  the  exception  of  touch,  the  senses  hardly 
exist ;  it  is  in  internal  impressions,  in  their  simultaneous 
concurrence,  in  their  sympathetic  combinations,  that  we 
find  the  source  of  this  language  of  the  physiognomy. 

The  condition  of  disease  known  as  aphasia,  which  has 
been  so  much  studied  during  the  last  few  years,  is  espe- 
cially interesting  in  its  bearing  on  the  doctrine  of  motor 
intuitions.  A  person  loses  the  power  of  expressing  his 
thoughts  by  articulate  language,  understanding  all  the 
time  perhaps  what  is  said  to  him ;  and  although  in  the 
majority  of  cases  in  which  this  happens  there  is  hemi- 
plegia  of  one  side,  generally  of  the  right,  there  may  be 
no  paralysis  at  all.  Moreover,  in  those  cases  in  which 
there  is  hemiplegia,  there  is  not  any  paralysis  of  the 
muscles  of  articulation ;  the  loss  of  speech  is  not  due  to 
any  defect  in  the  actual  instruments  of  utterance  ;  nor  is 
the  loss  of  power  of  intelligent  expression  by  speech 
owing  in  all  cases,  or  entirely  in  any  case,  to  the  loss  of 
intelligence,  though  it  is  certainly  true  that  there  is  in 
many  cases  of  hemiplegia  some  degree  of  mental  failure — 
some  degree  of  enfeebled  intelligence  and  of  emotional 
excitability.  Intelligence,  however,  often  fails  or  is  lost 
without  loss  of  the  power  of  speech;  and  we  certainly 
meet  with  occasional  instances  of  the  latter  defect  with- 
out any  appreciable  loss  of  intelligence — instances  in 
which  the  patient  is  able  to  communicate  his  thoughts 
by  gesture-language,  or  by  writing.  It  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind,  in  regard  to  this  question,  that  language  consists 
essentially  in  the  establishment  of  a  definite  relation 
between  the  idea  and  the  sign  by  which  it  is  outwardly 
manifested;  that  it  may  be  verbal,  vocal,  graphic,  or 
mimic  ;  and  that  the  general  faculty  of  language  includes 
all  these  modes  of  expressing  the  thoughts.  The  per- 
sistence of  one  or  more  of  these  other  modes  of  expres- 
sion, where  the  faculty  of  speech  is  lost,  proves  that, 
notwithstanding  the  intelligence  is  most  probably  weak- 


476  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [CHAP. 

ened  in  most  cases  of  aphasia,  it  is  certainly  not  then 
weakened  to  such  an  extent  that  the  loss  of  speech  can 
be  due  to  the  abolition  of  ideas.  It  may  happen  in  some 
cases  that  the  power  of  speech  is  not  entirely  lost,  the 
person  making  use  of  wrong  words,  either  conscious  or 
unconscious  that  he  is  doing  so ;  in  other  cases,  that  he 
can  make  an  apt  emotional  ejaculation  under  the  influ- 
ence of  excitement  when  he  is  quite  unable  to  speak  his 
thoughts. 

Where,  then,  does  the  immediate  mischief  in  aphasia 
lie  ?  The  first  movements  of  speech  which  a  child  makes 
are  made  in  imitation  of  the  sounds  which  it  hears ;  they 
are  of  a  reflex  nature,  and  are  executed  by  means  of 
those  parts  of  the  pons  and  the  medulla  to  which  the 
auditory  nerve  goes — the  nuclei  of  the  facial,  the  vagus, 
and  the  hypoglossal  nerves,  which  are  in  anatomical  con- 
nection with  the  nucleus  of  the  auditory.  They  are  a 
development,  so  to  speak,  of  the  inarticulate  cry  which 
the  new-born  infant  makes;  itself  a  muscular  action 
which  implies  the  combined  action  of  the  expiratory 
muscles  and  of  the  muscles  which  narrow  the  rima 
glottidis.  When  in  due  time  the  definite  co-ordinate 
movement  of  a  word  has  been  executed  as  a  reflex  act 
of  the  auditory  nerve  and  the  proper  associated  motor 
nuclei,  it  is  echoed,  as  it  were,  in  the  higher  representa- 
tive centres  in  the  convolutions,  through  the  agency  of 
the  intercommunicating  fibres  which  make  the  special 
connections  between  the  lower  and  the  higher  centres — 
the  scnsorial  and  the  ideational  arcs.  By  repetition  of 
this  centripetal  action  the  perceptive  residua  of  the 
special  sound  are  formed  in  the  proper  sensorial  or 
afferent  centre  of  the  convolutions,  and  the  associated 
motor  residua  of  the  special  movements  which  effect  its 
utterance  are  formed  in  the  proper  motor  or  efferent 
department  of  the  convolutions  ;  so  that  when  the  word 
is  afterwards  uttered  voluntarily  the  stimulated  sensory 


VIIL]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  477 

residua  in  the  former  excite  the  motor  intuitions  in  the 
latter  centres,  which  thereupon  act  centrifugally  upon  the 
motor  nuclei.  It  is  reflex  action  in  higher  centres — along 
the  ideational  arc. 

This  being  the  probable  physiological  mechanism  of 
voluntary  speech,  we  can  easily  perceive  that  disorder 
or  loss  of  the  function  may  be  produced  in  more  ways 
than  one.  If  the  continuity  of  a  person's  auditory 
nerve  be  interrupted,  he  will  be  deaf:  deaf  only,  if 
residua  of  vocal  sound  have  been  stored  up  before 
he  became  deaf;  deaf  and  dumb,  if  he  was  deaf  before 
such  residua  had  been  acquired,  that  is,  if  he  was 
born  deaf.  If  the  perceptive  centres  of  the  auditory 
nerve  in  the  convolutions  were  clean  cut  out  artificially, 
or  entirely  destroyed  by  disease  or  injury,  all  names 
would  vanish  from  his  memory ;  he  would  not  be  able  to 
understand  or  to  repeat  voluntarily  a  word  spoken  to 
him.  It  is  conceivable,  however,  that  he  might  even 
under  these  circumstances  occasionally  repeat  a  word  as 
a  reflex  or  sensori-motor  act  if  the  auditory  nucleus  and 
its  motor  connections  were  uninjured.  Moreover,  he 
would  not  be  without  ideas,  forasmuch  as  having  still 
the  residua  of  the  perceptive  centres  of  the  other  senses 
of  taste,  touch,  sight,  his  ideas  might  be  excited  through 
these,  and  might  even  be  uttered  in  speech  by  means  of 
their  action  upon  the  proper  motor  residua.  Hearing  is 
necessary  to  learn  to  speak,  as  men  do  learn  speech,  but 
once  speech  has  been  learned,  it  may  be  excited  by  the 
action  of  other  sensory  residua  which  have  been  asso- 
ciated with  its  motor  residua.  His  mind  would  be  an 
utter  blank  when  the  name  of  an  object  was  spoken 
to  him,  but  he  might  recognise  the  object  and  utter  its 
name  when  it  was  shown  to  him,  or  might  know  it 
ihrough  touch  when  it  was  put  into  his  hands. 

If  the  connecting  fibres  between  the  auditory  centres 
in  the  convolutions  and  the  associated  motor  residua 


178  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

in  the  frontal  convolutions  were  destroyed,  the  person 
would  understand  everything  said  to  him,  and  might 
certainly  be  able  to  speak  freely,  his  motor  residua 
being  unimpaired,  but  he  clearly  could  not  make  the 
connections  between  the  sensory  residua  of  sound  and 
their  proper  motor  residua.  He  could  not  select  the 
right  word  through  sound,  although  he  might  be  per- 
fectly conscious  of  his  mistake  if  he  used  a  wrong 
one,  and  would  certainly  be  able  to  stimulate  the  right 
motor  residua  through  the  perceptive  centres  of  the 
other  senses.  If  the  motor  residua  of  speech  in  the 
frontal  convolutions  were  entirely  destroyed,  the  person, 
while  understanding  what  was  said  to  him,  would  not  be 
able  to  speak  a  single  word  voluntarily ;  he  could  neither 
repeat  voluntarily  a  word  spoken  to  him,  nor  name  an 
object  placed  before  his  eyes  or  made  to  affect  any  other 
sense,  although  it  is  possible  that  he  might  sometimes 
utter  a  word  as  a  reflex  sensori-motor  act  through  the 
agency  of  the  auditory  nucleus  and  its  motor  connec- 
tions. It  may  be  supposed  that  the  result  of  destroying 
the  nerves  connecting  the  motor  arrangements  in  the 
frontal  convolutions  with  the  subordinate  motor  ganglia 
would,  so  far  as  speech  was  concerned,  be  the  same  as 
that  which  would  follow  the  destruction  of  the  motor 
arrangements  in  the  convolutions.  Looking  to  these 
different  ways  in  which  injury  to  the  anatomical  substrata 
of  speech  may  affect  its  function,  and  bearing  in  mind 
that  the  injury  will  seldom  be  of  so  defined  a  character 
as  that  which  has  been  assumed  for  illustration  in  the 
supposed  cases,  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  witness  the 
varying  phenomena  which  are  actually  met  with  in  dif- 
ferent forms  of  aphasia.  As  will  easily  be  understood, 
the  difficulty  is  to  observe  accurately  in  a  given  case  the 
exact  nature  and  extent  of  the  deficiencies  which  the 
person  presents. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  intelligence  is  often 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  479 

more  deeply  affected  in  aphasia  than  is  supposed  by  on- 
lookers, and  than  the  patient  himself  is  apt  to  believe. 
Reflecting  upon  the  important,  indeed  the  essential, 
part  which  the  motor  intuitions  play  in  the  mental  life,  it 
is  hard  to  conceive  how  the  loss  of  them  can  take  place 
without  secondary  injury  to  the  ideational  functions — to 
the  intelligence  ;  this  may  not  be  primarily  affected  by 
the  disease,  but  it  cannot  fail  to  suffer  secondarily.  Is  it 
possible  to  think  definitely  and  consecutively  without  that 
power  of  internal  representation  which  we  have  in  the 
motor  intuition,  and  which,  in  thinking,  stands  for  the 
outward  utterance  ?  *  We  may  think,  it  is  true,  of  con- 
crete perceptions,  but  can  we  pursue  a  train  of  abstract 
thought  ?  Even  though  the  aphasic  patient  may  not  be 
himself  aware  of  any  mental  failure,  and  may  feel  con- 
vinced that  it  is  only  the  words  to  express  his  ideas  that  he 
lacks,  yet  it  is  not  unlikely  that  his  condition  resembles 
somewhat  that  of  a  person  in  a  dream,  who  fancies  that 
he  is  thinking  most  logically,  and  discoursing  most  elo- 
quently, when  his  thoughts  are  confused  and  his  words 
incoherent.  The  history  of  cases  of  aphasia  proves  that 
this  is  certainly  so  sometimes.  It  is  easy  to  comprehend 
the  disputes  which  arise  among  on-lookers  who  endea- 
vour to  test  the  intelligence  in  these  cases  :  when  the 
regular  channel  by  which  intelligence  expresses  itself  is 
closed,  it  must  obviously  be  very  difficult  to  appraise 
accurately  the  degree  of  intelligence.  The  simple  ques- 
tions which  are  usually  put,  for  this  purpose,  to  aphasic 
patients  certainly  do  not  decide  the  question :  a 

*  "  Herein  lies  the  necessity  of  utterance,  the  representation  of 
thought," says  Heyse.  "Thought  is  not  even  present  to  the  thinker, 
till  he  has  set  it  forth  out  of  himself.  Man,  as  an  individual  endowed 
with  sense  and  mind,  first  attains  to  thought,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  comprehension  of  himself,  by  setting  forth  out  of  himself  the  con- 
tents of  his  mind ;  and  in  this  his  free  production,  he  comes  to  the 
knowledge  of  himself,  his  thinking 'L*  He  comes  first  to  himself 
in  uttering  himself." 


480  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

demented  person,  whose  mental  faculties  were  almost 
abolished,  might  answer  sensibly  when  he  was  asked 
so  commonplace  a  question  as  what  he  would  do  if  the 
room  were  on  fire ;  and  many  patients  in  lunatic  asy- 
lums whose  intelligence  is  in  a  very  shattered  state  are 
able  to  play  cards  and  draughts  skilfully.  It  is  certainly 
quite  possible  for  an  aphasic  patient  to  evince  intelligent 
appreciation  of  simple  questions  and  obvious  suggestions 
when  he  has  lost  all  power  of  sustained  and  definite 
thought.  And,  apart  from  all  theoretical  considerations, 
the  evidence  which  exists  at  present  is  in  favour  of  the 
opinion  that  the  intelligence  is  often  weakened  in 
aphasia. 

There  is  one  observation  more  to  be  made  before  pass- 
ing from  this  subject  Some  writers  are  in  the  habit  of 
affirming  that  it  is  in  names  we  think,  and  that  they 
are  the  indispensable  instruments  of  thought  "  I  there- 
fore declare  my  conviction,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "  whether 
right  or  wrong,  as  explicitly  as  possible,  that  thought  in 
one  sense  of  the  word,  i.e.,  in  reasoning,  is  impossible 
without  language."  Assuredly  this  sounds  too  absolute 
a  statement  Is  not  the  deaf  and  dumb  man  a  living 
refutation  of  the  proposition  that  man  cannot  reason 
without  speech  ?  The  example  of  Laura  Bridgman,  who 
was  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,  as  her  case  is  admirably 
described  by  Dr.  Howe,  proves  that  a  person  may  have 
human  thought  without  being  able  to  speak ;  and  the 
instances  of  aphasic  patients  who  can  express  their  ideas 
in  writing  point  in  the  same  direction.  But  neither  these 
instances,  nor  the  case  of  Laura  Bridgman,  can  be  used 
to  prove  that  it  is  possible  to  think  without  any  means  of 
physical  expression.  On  the  contrary,  the  evidence  is 
all  the  other  way.  The  deaf  and  dumb  man  invents  his 
own  signs,  which  he  draws  from  the  nature  of  objects, 
seizing  the  most  striking  outline,  or  the  principal  move- 
ment of  an  action,  and  using  them  afterwards  as  tokens 


viii.J  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  481 

to  represent  the  objects.*  The  deaf  and  dumb  gesticulate 
also  as  they  think,  and  Laura  Bridgman's  fingers  worked, 
making  the  initial  movements  for  letters  of  the  finger- 
alphabet,  not  only  during  her  waking  thoughts,  but  in  her 
dreams.f  If  we  substitute  for  "  names  "  "  the  motor 
intuitions,"  or  take  care  to  comprise  in  language  all  the 
modes  of  expressing  thoughts,  whether  verbal,  vocal 
writing,  or  gesture-language,  then  it  is  unquestionable 
that  thought  is  impossible  without  language.  In  man  the 
tongue  has  been  almost  exclusively  appropriated  for  the 
expression  of  thought,  but  there  is  no  absolute  reason 
why  his  fingers,  hands,  and  arms  might  not  be  used,  like 
the  antennce  of  ants,  and  the  hands  and  fingers  of  the 
deaf  mute,  to  express  all  the  results  of  mental  action.  £ 

*  "  And  whilst  he  silently  elaborates  the  signs  he  has  found  for 
single  objects,  that  is,  whilst  he  describes  these  forms  for  himself  in 
the  air,  or  imitates  them  in  thought  with  hands,  fingers,  and  gestures, 
he  develops  for  himself  suitable  signs  to  represent  ideas,  which 
serve  him  as  a  means  of  fixing  ideas  of  different  kinds  in  his  mind, 
and  recalling  them  to  his  memory.  And  thus  he  makes  himself  a 
language,  the  so-called  gesture-language  (Geberden-sprache) ;  and 
with  these  few  scanty  and  imperfect  signs,  a  way  for  thought  is 
already  broken,  and  with  his  thought  as  it  now  opens  out,  the 
language  cultivates  and  forms  itself  further  and  further."  Many 
artificial  signs  are  added  by  teachers  to  enrich  the  language.  Kru«e, 
Uber  Taubstummen,  1853.  He  was  a  learned  deaf  mute,  who 
is  quoted  by  Mr.  Tyler  in  his  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  20. 

•f"  Tyler's  Early  Ifistorv  of  Mankind,  p.  70. 

£  And  even  to  communicate  such  results  by  touch  without  the 
help  of  sight.  In  a  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Asylum  for  the 
Blind,  Dr.  Howe  relates  that  a  blind  child,  during  the  vacation, 
contracted  St.  Vitus's  dance.  When  the  school  reassembled,  another 
child  soon  manifested  the  disease,  and  soon  afterwards  a  third.  It 
was  necessary  to  send  these  children  home  in  order  to  prevent  the 
whole  school  being  infected  through  the  imitative  tendency.  They 
soon  recovered  after  separation.  As  the  children  were  blind,  it  was 
not  through  sight  that  they  were  infected ;  but  a  knowledge  and 
imitation  of  the  disordered  movements  were  acquired  by  close  con- 
tact of  the  children  with  one  another  at  their  school-desks,  in  their 
sports.  &c. 


482  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  01-'  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  reasons  why  the  tongue  has  been  specially  selected 
for  this  purpose  are  obvious  :  first,  because  of  its  con- 
nexion with  the  vocal  organs,  whereby  its  movements,  in 
conjunction  with  those  of  the  lips,  modify  in  a  great 
variety  of  ways  the  different  sounds,  and  thus  make 
audible  language,  which  is  plainly  on  the  whole  more 
useful  to  man  than  visible  language,  for  it  would  be 
extremely  inconvenient  if  one  person  could  not  com- 
municate with  another  without  seeing  or  touching  him  ; 
secondly,  because  of  the  great  variety,  delicacy,  and  com- 
plexity of  movements  of  which  the  numerous  muscles  of 
the  tongue  are  capable  in  so  small  a  space,whereby  the  most 
delicate  shades  of  thought  and  feeling  can  be  expressed ; 
and,  thirdly,  because  the  movements  of  the  hands  are 
required  for  other  purposes,  while  it  is  difficult  to  per- 
ceive what  other  purpose  the  wonderful  variety  of  the 
tongue's  movements  could  have  served,  when  it  was  not 
engaged  in  co-operating  in  the  taking  and  mastication  of 
food.* 

The  influence  of  the  motor  department  of  mental 
action,  the  region  of  actuation,  might  receive  further 
illustration  from  the  phenomena  of  insanity  and  of  certain 
convulsive  diseases.  It  scarcely  admits  of  question  that 
some  of  the  delusions  of  the  insane  have  their  origin  in 
what  may  justly  be  called  motor  hallucinations ;  a  dis- 
order of  the  nervous  centres  of  the  motor  intuitions  gene- 
rates in  consciousness  a  false  conception  or  delusion  as 
to  the  condition  of  the  muscles,  so  that  an  individual 
lying  in  his  bed  believes  himself  to  be  flying  through  the 
air,  or  imagines  his  legs,  arms,  or  head,  to  be  separated 
from  his  body,  just  as  he  has  hallucinations  of  sense  when 

*  It  is  a  fact — nowise  surprising  when  we  consider  what  they  in- 
herit— that  deaf  mutes,  who  have  been  bom  so,  do  of  their  own 
accord,  untaught,  make  vocal  sounds  more  or  less  articulate,  attach- 
ing a  definite  meaning  to  them,  and  using  them  afterwards  in  the 
same  sense.  In  some  these  sounds  are  very  clear  and  well  defined. 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  483 

the  sensorial  centres  are  disordered.  In  dreams  we  may 
sometimes  observe  the  same  kind  of  thing,  as  when  from 
hindered  respiratory  movements  a  person  suddenly  wakes 
up  with  the  idea  that  he  is  falling  over  a  precipice. 
Illusory  movements,  or  illusory  positions,  are  the  charac- 
teristic traits  of  vertigo,  which  is  the  subjective  aspect  of 
the  deranged  motor  factors ;  other  subjective  sensations, 
such  as  noises  in  the  ears,  flashes  before  the  eyes,  and 
painful  sensations  in  the  head,  accompanying  them.  In 
dreams,  and  in  drunkenness  also,  there  is  no  power  of 
correcting  these  subjective  motor  experiences  ;  and  the 
brain  or  mind,  rendering  them  conscious,  converts  them 
into  false  conceptions  of  space.*  Such  motor  illusions 

*  "  I  had  some  years  since,"  Dr.  Whytt  writes,  "a  patient  affected 
with  an  erysipelas  in  his  i'ace,  who,  when  awake,  was  free  from  any 
confusion  in  his  ideas  ;  but  no  sooner  did  he  shut  his  eyes,  although 
not  asleep,  than  his  imagination  began  to  be  greatly  disturbed.  He 
thought  himself  carried  swiftly  through  the  air  to  distant  regions ; 
and  sometimes  imagined  his  head,  arms,  and  legs  to  be  separated 
from  his  body,  and  to  fly  off  different  ways." — Obs.  on  Nature,  Causes, 
and  Cure  of  Nervous,  Hypochondriacal,  and  Hysteric  Disorders. 
1765.  A  drunken  man  who  may  be  fairly  steady  while  his 'eyes 
are  open,  or  while  his  motor  centres  are  associated  with  sensory 
stimuli,  gets  subjective  sensations  of  swimming  in  the  head,  sinking 
of  his  body,  &c. ,  when  his  eyes  are  shut. 

The  illusive  effects  which  follow  injuries  of  single  muscles  of  the  eye 
illustrate  in  a  striking  manner  how  the  movements  of  the  eye  minister 
to  our  visual  conceptions  of  space  and  of  relations  of  position.  If  the 
external  rectus  of  the  eye  is  suddenly  rendered  powerless  by  an 
injury,  the  disposition  to  occasionally  turn  the  eye  outwards  per- 
sists ;  but  it  is,  of  course,  without  result.  The  eye  may  be  turned 
in  all  other  directions,  and  the  position  of  objects  in  the  field  of 
vision  is  correctly  perceived.  So  soon,  however,  as  it  is  attempted 
to  turn  it  outwards,  an  apparent  movement  of  the  objects  occurs 
towards  the  same  side  to  which  the  futile  effort  to  move  the  eye 
is  made.  This  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  person  believes  the 
eye,  which  is  motionless,  to  move  ;  the  consciousness  of  the  effort  to 
move  it  is  objectified,  and  produces  the  hallucination  of  an  actual 
movement,  and  as  the  eye  notwithstanding  does  not  move,  the 
objects  appear  to  move.  If  the  external  rectus  is  only  partially 


484  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

or  hallucinations  can  of  course  only  ensue  when  the 
reaction  of  the  disordered  motor  intuition  is  into  con- 
sciousness ;  if,  as  may  happen,  and  commonly  does 
happen,  the  reaction  takes  place  outwards,  there  are 
irregular  or  convulsive  movements,  but  no  delusion  is 
generated.  In  fact,  when  the  motorium  commune  is  dis- 
ordered, its  morbid  function  may  be  displayed  in  irre- 
gular or  convulsive  muscular  action,  and,  if  the  deterior- 
ation proceed  far  enough,  in  paralysis  ;  or  it  may  react 
upon  the  mental  life  and  give  rise  to  disorder  of  intelli- 
gence. According  as  the  disordered  function  acts  in  an 
upward  or  downward  direction,  centripetally  or  centri- 
fugally,  that  is,  according  as  it  invades  the  sphere  of  con- 
sciousness or  passes  into  outward  expression,  it  occasions 
mental  disorder  or  convulsions. 

The  phenomena  of  convulsions,  properly  examined, 
serve  to  illustrate  the  existence  and  to  exhibit  the  inde- 
pendent action  of  the  motor  intuitions  ;  their  discon- 
nected movements  show  plainly  that  there  are  special 
motor  nerve-centres  which  may,  when  co-ordination 
is  deranged,  act  independently.  Be  it  noted  that  every 
kind  of  movement  which  may  be  normally  excited  by 
the  will  may  occur  as  a  convulsive  act,  when,  of 
course,  there  is  no  question  of  the  exercise  of  will, 
and  when  there  is  often  an  entire  absence  of  conscious- 
paralyzed,  the  eye  may  be  fixed  upon  an  outward-lying  object,  but  a 
stronger  effort  will  be  needed  to  do  so.  Accordingly  the  object  will 
appear  to  be  placed  farther  outwards  than  it  actually  is,  and  if  the 
person  makes  a  grasp  at  it,  his  hand  will  go  beyond  it.  Thus  the 
judgment  of  the  position  of  an  object  in  space  is  essentially  de- 
termined by  the  feeling  of  effort  which  accompanies  every  im- 
pulse to  movement.  See  WUNUT,  Grundzitge  der  physiologischen 
Psychologie,  p.  553,  who  has  deeply  discussed  this  subject ;  also 
BAIN,  The  Stnsfs  and  the  Intellect,  where  it  is  treated  in  thorough 
detail.  It  appears  that  Mr.  Bain's  theory  and  exposition  of  the 
nature  of  our  perception  of  space  agrees  in  essential  points  with  that 
of  Steinbuch.  (Beitrag  zur  Fhysiohgie  da-  Sinne.  Nurnberg,  iSil.) 


vin.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  485 

ness.  As  the  individual  in  sound  health  must  give  in- 
tense attention  in  order  to  isolate  a  certain  muscular 
movement  which  usually  takes  place  as  a  part  of  a  com- 
plex series,  and  cannot  always  then  succeed,  it  is  nowise 
surprising  that  there  should  often  be  more  or  less  co- 
ordination of  movements  in  spasmodic  or  convulsive 
muscular  action.  Indeed,  it  would  be  surprising  if  there 
were  not.  In  cases  of  cerebral  hoemorrhage,  it  sometimes 
happens  that  the  articulating  movements  of  single  sounds, 
or  of  a  certain  series  of  sounds,  syllables,  or  words,  are 
produced  without  any  mental  act  or  even  against  the  will 
of  the  patient ;  in  like  manner,  other  co-ordinate  move- 
ments take  place  sometimes  without  the  least  trace 
of  consciousness  being  evinced.  We  shall  not  be  sur- 
prised at  the  occasional  occurrence  of  speech  movements 
and  of  other  definite  acts  during  complete  unconscious- 
ness if  we  call  to  mind  how  poetry  which  has  been 
thoroughly  learned  may  be  repeated  mechanically,  while 
the  attention  is  engaged  on  something  quite  different ;  the 
repetition,  once  started,  being  indeed  most  successful 
when  done  with  least  consciousness.  As  examples  of 
general  spasmodic  action  of  the  body,  co-ordinated  never- 
theless into  a  particular  outcome,  Romberg  relates  a 
remarkable  case  of  what  he  calls  rotatory  spasm  in  a 
girl  ten  years  of  age,  and  another  case  of  co-ordinated 
spasm  in  combination  with  chorea,  which  occurred  in  a 
boy  aged  six,  who  was  occasionally  attacked  with  an 
irresistible  desire  to  climb  in  spite  of  every  impediment; 
in  the  intervals  he  was  affected  with  chorea.  Conscious- 
ness is  not  always  entirely  abolished  ;  and  in  that  case 
the  patients  are  able  to  give  an  account  of  the  impulse 
which  instigates  the  movements,  and  which  they  are  un- 
able to  withstand  successfully. 

It   is   a   well  known   fact   that   the   idea  of   convul- 
sions, whether  excited  by  present  perception  or  through 
memory,   may  express  itself   in   convulsive  movements 
22 


486  THE  PIIYSIOLCGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

— movements  which,  nevertheless,  often  display  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  co-ordination.  Everybody  perceives 
how,  in  a  healthy  person,  swallowing,  coughing,  and 
yawning  are  excited  by  the  observation  of  these  acts  in 
another ;  and  as  instances  of  similarly  produced  morbid 
actions,  Romberg  adduces  those  dancing  epidemics  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  co-ordinate  spasmodic  move- 
ments were  notoriously  excited  in  delicate  women,  and 
continued  by  them  with  a  violence  and  persistence  which 
would  soon  have  exhausted  the  strongest  man  who  was 
in  a  normal  mental  state.  Persons  who  are  labouring 
under  acute  mania  frequently  keep  up  an  unintermitting 
succession  of  purposeless,  irregular,  and  mischievous  or 
destructive  acts,  which  nevertheless  evince  a  considerable 
amount  of  co-ordination — a  complex  co-ordination  of 
acts,  I  mean,  not  of  individual  movements  simply ;  their 
actions,  like  their  ideas,  are  delirious  and  incoherent. 
They  are  complex  machines  which,  being  out  of  order, 
go  on  in  deranged  action.  Will  represents  the  highest 
co-ordination  of  the  ideas,  feelings,  and  movements ;  when 
disease  has  destroyed  this  highest  acquisition  of  evolu- 
tion, we  have,  so  to-  speak,  a  resolution  of  will  into  the 
component  factors,  which  now  act  on  their  own  account 
— automatically :  the  uncontrolled  act  of  passion,  or  the 
convulsion  of  a  limb,  is  a  loss  of  power  of  will,  because 
it  is  an  independent  act,  no  longer  in  due  co-ordination 
with,  or  subordination  to,  other  functions  of  the  mental 
organization.  It  behoves  us  to  keep  well  in  mind,  and 
to  appreciate  the  full  bearing  and  import  of,  the  fact  that 
as  so  many  of  our  co-ordinate  actions  are  done  automa- 
tically in  health,  so  there  may  be  much  co-ordinate 
automatic  action  in  the  convulsive  phenomena  of 
disease. 

There  yet  remain  further  important  considerations. 
Let  a  man  have  the  will  to  command  a  certain  move- 
ment and  a  conception  of  the  result  desired,  without 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  487 

any  paralysis  of  motor  power,  he  may  still  be  impotent 
to  perform  the  movement.  And  why  ?  Because  there 
may  be  a  paralysis  of  sensibility  in  the  muscles  of  the 
part,  by  reason  of  which  he  has  no  means  of  knowing 
what  is  the  condition  of  the  instruments  which  he  has 
to  use — cannot  tell  whether  they  are  acting  or  not ;  he 
lacks  that  information  which  the  muscular  sense  should 
rightly  yield  him.(')  In  order  that  the  will  may  actuate  a 
movement,  there  are  necessary,  then,  not  only  a  concep- 
tion of  the  end  desired  and  a  motor  intuition  of  the 
muscular  movements  subserving  that  end,  but  also  a 
sense  of  the  action  of  the  muscles.  Any  psychological . 
arguments  as  to  the  value  of  this  guiding  muscular  feel- 
ing are  rendered  needless  by  pathological  experience, 
which  plainly  proves  that,  when  the  muscular  sense  is 
paralysed,  the  movements  cannot  be  performed,  except 
some  other  sense  come  to  the  rescue ;  or,  at  any  rate, 
that  when  all  the  other  senses  are  seemingly  perfect  the 
movement  cannot  be  performed,  presumably  because  of 
the  loss  of  the  muscular  sense.  It  is  not  to  be  looked  upon 
as  an  actively  conscious  sense,  like  sight  or  touch,  but 
rather  as  of  the  nature  of  organic  sense,  giving  its  in- 
formation and  working  its  effects  without  definite  con- 
sciousness. The  sense  of  sight  may  take  its  place  when 
it  is  lost :  a  woman  whom  Sir  Charles  Bell  saw,  who  had 
lost  the  muscular  sense  in  her  arm,  could  nevertheless 
hold  her  child  when  she  kept  her  eyes  upon  it ;  but  the 
moment  she  turned  her  eyes  away  she  dropped  the  child. 
I  have  seen  a  similar  instance  of  a  woman,  epileptic  in 
consequence  of  syphilis,  who  had  lost  the  muscular  sense 
in  her  left  arm,  and  who  did  not  know,  except  she  fixed 
her  eyes  upon  the  limb,  whether  she  had  got  hold  of 
anything  with  her  hand  or  not ;  if  she  grasped  a  jug,  she 
could  hold  it  quite  well  as  long  as  she  looked  at  it,  but 
if  she  turned  her  eyes  away  she  dropped  it :  she  had  no 
loss  of  tactile  sensation. 


4S8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

In  such  morbid  states  the  difference  between  tactile  sen- 
sation and  the  muscular  sense  is  well  marked.*  "  Ollivier 
details  a  case  in  which  the  patient  had  lost  the  cutaneous 
sense  of  touch  throughout  the  side  in  consequence  of 
concussion ;  at  the  same  time  he  was  able  to  form  a 
correct  estimate  of  the  weight  of  bodies  with  his  right 
hand.  The  physician  observed  by  Marcet,  who  was 
affected  with  anaesthesia  cutanea  of  the  right  side,  was 
perfectly  able  to  feel  his  patient's  pulse  with  the  fingers  of 
the  right  hand  and  to  determine  its  frequency  and  force, 
but  in  order  to  determine  the  temperature  of  the  skin  he 
was  obliged  to  call  in  the  aid  of  his  left  hand."  Anaes- 
thesia of  the  muscle,  without  loss  of  tactile  power,  does, 
according  to  Romberg,  invariably  accompany  the  disease 

*  Those  who  deny  the  existence  of  a  special  muscular  sense  hold 
that  the  information  which  we  have  of  the  position  and  movements 
of  our  limbs  is  furnished  by  the  tactile  sense,  and  by  the  sensory 
nerves  distributed  to  the  ligaments,  the  joints,  &c.  Certainly  we  are 
conscious  of  the  position  of  a  limb  in  passive  movements,  when,  as 
it  is  moved  for  us,  we  appear  to  make  no  muscular  exertion.  But 
it  is  not  then  as  passive  as  a  dead  man's  limb.  There  is  some 
muscular  tension.  Moreover  it  is  true  that,  when  there  is  cutaneous 
insensibility  without  loss  of  muscular  feeling,  the  perception  of 
our  own  movements  is  considerably  disturbed.  It  would  appear 
that  the  perception  of  the  position  of  a  limb  is  really  a  complex 
product  produced  by  the  fusion  of  manifold  local  sensations  ot 
touch  with  our  various  muscular  feelings,  and  that,  once  formed,  it  is 
excited  by  stimulation  of  any  one  of  the  simple  sensations  from  the 
fusion  of  which  it  has  proceeded — by  any  one  of  its  constituent  sen- 
sations  ;  just,  in  fact,  as  a  perception  is  excited  by  the  stimulation  ol 
any  one  of  the  special  senses  from  the  sensations  of  which  it  has  been 
constituted — e.g.  the  perception  of  an  orange  through  touch,  or  smell, 
or  taste,  or  sight.  When  we  are  lying  in  bed  at  perfect  rest,  with- 
out the  least  movement  of  a  muscle  being  made,  and  without  the 
least  movement  of  anything  that  is  in  contact  with  the  surface  of  a 
limb,  we  may  be  uncertain  or  unaware  what  its  exact  position  is  ; 
but  the  moment  a  slight  muscular  contraction  is  made,  or  the  moment 
a  sensation  of  touch  is  produced  by  the  least  movement  of  the  limb, 
or  by  the  slightest  movement  of  the  clothes  covering  it,  we  have 
an  instant  perception  of  its  position. 


vin.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  489 

called  tabes  dorsalis."*  The  eyes  of  patients  so  affected 
are  their  regulators  or  feelers,  and  consequently  their 
helplessness,  when  their  eyes  are  shut,  or  they  are  in  the 
dark,  is  extreme  ;  if  told  to  shut  their  eyes  while  in  the 
erect  posture,  they  begin  to  oscillate  until  they  fall  down, 
unless  supported.  The  skin  remains  sensitive  except 
during  the  last  stage  of  the  disease. 

Romberg,  Duchenne,  and  others  have,  moreover, 
described  similar  morbid  conditions  in  aneemic  and 
hysterical  women,  which  can  hardly  be  called  paralysis, 
as  they  are  manifest  only  in  the  night  or  when  the  eyes 
are  shut :  the  patients  can  perform  movements,  but  these 
do  not  answer  accurately  to  the  will ;  they  are  deceived  as 
to  the  amount  of  force  necessary  to  be  put  forth,  and  some- 
times cannot  undertake  the  movement  of  a  limb  without 
the  help  of  sight.  In  these  cases  there  is  the  desire  to 
effect  a  certain  action,  there  is  the  motor  intuition  of  the 
movement  necessary  to  the  end  desired,  but  the  guiding 
sensation  of  the  muscular  sense  is  defective  or  wanting 
accordingly  the  action  cannot  be  done  unless  the  sense  of 
sight  takes  upon  it  the  function  of  the  defective  muscular 
sense. 

These  and  similar  cases  ot  disease  seem  to  me  to 
throw  some  light  upon  the  nature  of  that  which  we  mean 
when  we  speak  of  directing  the  attention  and  exerting 
the  will  strongly.  In  order  to  direct  the  attention  and 
exert  the  will  sufficiently  in  these  cases  in  which  there  is 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  simple  loss  of  muscular  feeling  is  not 
tabes  dorsalis.  In  tabes  dorsalis,  the  characteristic  phenomenon  is  a 
loss  of  the  power  of  co-ordination  of  the  muscles,  and  the  morbid 
appearances  are  those  of  degeneration  of  the  posterior  columns  of  the 
spinal  cord — the  motor  repository  or  centres  of  co-ordination  of  the 
movements  of  the  limbs.  Hence  the  disease  is  now  more  properly 
called  progressive  locomotor  ataxy.  Loss  of  muscular  feeling  is  a 
symptom  that  may  occur  in  different  diseases ;  if  another  sense 
takes  its  place,  movements  are  still  effected ;  so  that  the  power  of 
movement,  the  repository  of  motor  residua,  is  not  affected. 


490  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

some  temporary  exhaustion  or  morbid  enfeeblement  of 
the  motor  faculties,  and  a  powerful  stimulus  is  necessary 
to  do  what  a  moderate  stimulus  will  usually  do,  the 
sensory  stimulus  of  the  muscular  sense  must  be  strength- 
ened by  the  co-operation  of  the  stimulus  from  the  sense 
of  sight,  to  which  will  be  added  the  stimuli  from  the 
acting  muscles  of  the  eye.  In  this  way  the  excito-motor 
process  is  aroused  by  a  more  active  stimulus  ;  for  the 
sum  of  the  contributions  of  co-operating  stimuli  from 
different  senses  amounts  to  the  same  thing  in  this  relation 
as  the  more  powerful  action  of  a  single  stimulus.  The 
direction  and  the  exertion  of  will  are  really  a  solicita- 
tion or  excitation  of  greater  excito-motor  energy,  and 
consequently  of  more  active  consciousness  (i.e.  attention) 
through  the  agency  of  co-operating  sensory  stimuli :  the 
process  is  purely  physiological.  It  is  in  the  same  way  that 
the  exhausted  debauchee,  who  is  impotent  in  response  to 
the  natural  sensory  stimuli,  succeeds  in  arousing  the 
excito-motor  function  of  sexual  gratification  by  bringing 
to  bear  upon  each  sense  all  the  depraved  stimuli  to  which 
it  is  sensible,  thus  accumulating  a  sufficient  stimulus  to 
produce  the  desired  excitation.  If  he  be  a  person  of 
strong  imagination  he  may  perhaps  succeed  in  producing 
the  effect  by  a  vivid  mental  representation,  without  actual 
presentation,  of  the  impressions  which  are  adapted  to  act 
as  stimuli  on  the  different  senses.  Thus  it  appears  that, 
as  was  before  set  forth,  what  we  call  directing  conscious- 
ness by  a  voluntary  effort  is  really  the  excitation  of  con- 
sciousn  ess  in  consequence  of  the  greater  activity  of  cere- 
bral processes  which  is  produced  through  the  co-opera- 
tion of  as  many  stimuli,  internal  or  external,  as  it  is 
possible  to  bring  into  action. 

What  relation  has  the  muscular  sense  to  the  motor 
intuition  ?  It  is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer 
either  from  a  psychological  or  from  a  physiological  basis, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  not  easy  to  put  asunder  in  thought 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  491 

what  nature  has  joined  together.  The  relation  appears 
to  be  not  unlike  that  which  the  sensation  of  a  special 
sense  has  to  the  corresponding  idea  :  as  the  sensation 
of  the  special  sense  is  necessary  to  the  formation 
of  the  idea,  but,  the  idea  once  formed,  not  necessary 
to  its  existence  or  function,  so  the  muscular  feeling 
would  seem  to  be  an  essential  prerequisite  to  the  for- 
mation of  the  motor  intuition,  but,  this  once  formed,  not 
necessary  to  its  latent  existence,  or  indeed  to  its  active 
function,  provided  only  another  sense  furnish  the  guiding 
information.  Like  other  senses,  the  muscular  sense  is 
receptive ;  it  ministers  to  the  building  up  of  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  solidity,  size,  figure,  and  distance, 
through  the  impressions  which  it  receives  from  without 
and  conveys  inwards,  and  the  subsequent  internal  adapta- 
tions which  take  place ;  and  in  the  outward  intelligent 
reaction  of  the  individual  upon  external  nature,  by  virtue 
of  these  ideas,  it  furnishes  the  guidirg  feeling  by  which 
he  is  enabled  to  direct  the  aqtion  and  to  regulate  the 
amount  of  force  applied  in  any  given  case.  In  point 
of  fact,  the  consolidation  of  its  different  impressions 
with  the  adapted  movements  constitutes  the  percep- 
tion of  the  object — constitutes  what  is,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  the  object :  how  then  can  we  act  practi- 
cally in  relation  to  the  perception,  when  the  sensory 
contributions  are  taken  out  of  it,  and  when  it  is  no  longer 
therefore  to  us  the  definite  object,  unless  some  other 
sense  supplies  what  is  wanting  and  so  completes  the 
perception — in  other  words,  reconstitutes  the  object 
for  us  ?  How  admirably  graduated  is  the  application  of 
force  by  the  skilful  hand  in  delicate  handicraft  operations  ! 
How  clumsy  and  incapable  is  the  beginner  in  such  crafts 
until,  by  frequent  practice,  the  requisite  motor  intuitions 
have  been  acquired  1  Consider  how  awkward  any  one 
is  at  so  simple  a  matter  as  winding  up  a  watch  for  the 
first  time,  and  how  quick,  easy,  and  precise  the  operation 


492  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

afterwards  becomes.  Observations  made  upon  persons 
born  blind  prove  that  there  is  nothing  essential  to  the 
highest  intellectual  processes  which  may  not  be  acquired 
in  the  absence  of  sight,  mainly  through  the  muscular 
feeling  in  combination  with  touch.  (2) 

Because  the  muscular  feelings  in  combination  with 
tactile  and  other  sensations  gradually  build  up  the  motor 
intuitions  in  accordance  with  the  order,  synchronous  or 
successive,  of  our  experience,  it  is  not  difficult  to  de- 
ceive them  by  a  new  experience  modifying  or  reversing 
that  order.  They  are  inductions,  and,  like  all  in- 
ductions per  enumerationem  simplicem,  they  are  liable 
to  be  upset  by  the  instantia  contradictoria.  We  have 
already  shown  how  the  eye  may  be  deceived,  and 
there  is  a  familiar  example  of  similarly  produced  illu- 
sion in  the  case  of  touch.  It  is  well  known  that,  if 
the  middle  finger  be  crossed  over  the  fore-finger,  and 
a  pea  or  a  like  round  body  be  put  between  them 
and  the  fingers  rolled  over  it,  while  the  eyes  are  turned 
away,  there  will  be  the  sensations  of  two  bodies ;  the 
impression  on  that  side  of  the  fore-finger  which  is  habi- 
tually associated  in  action  with  the  thumb  excites  inde- 
pendently its  residua,  and  the  impression  on  that  side  of 
the  middle  finger  which  is  accustomed  to  act  with  the 
third  finger  excites  also  its  residua ;  the  consequence  is 
a  feeling  of  two  bodies  which  it  requires  the  evidence  of 
another  sense  to  correct.  So  closely  and  definitely  are 
our  different  senses  associated  in  their  functions  that 
they  may,  instead  of  aiding  and  correcting  one  another, 
as  is  their  proper  function,  thus  actually  help  to  deceive 
one  another  when  the  order  of  their  experiences  is  un- 
expectedly deranged.  When  the  metal  potassium  was 
first  shown  to  an  eminent  philosopher,  he  exclaimed,  on 
taking  it  into  his  hand,  "  Bless  me,  how  heavy  it  is  ! " 
and  yet  potassium  is  so  light  as  to  float  on  water. 
The  metallic  appearance  had  suggested  a  certain  resist- 


vin.]  MOTOR  NERVOVS  CENTRES.  493 

ance,  or  the  putting  forth  of  so  much  muscular  energy 
as  previous  experience  of  substances  having  a  similar 
look  had  proved  necessary ;  the  consciousness  of  the 
effort  made  instigated  the  false  judgment,  the  suggestion 
of  the  visual  sense  overswaying  the  actual  experience  of 
the  muscular  and  tactile  senses  :  the  latter  were  deceived, 
as  the  man  is  who  concludes  that  a  certain  co-existence 
or  succession  in  nature  must  always  exist  because  he  has 
observed  it  in  a  great  many  instances ;  or  as,  at  the 
supposed  disinterment  of  a  body  suspected  to  have  been 
murdered,  one  of  the  spectators  who  fainted  on  account 
of  the  bad  smell  was  deceived ;  for,  -when  the  coffin  was 
opened,  it  was  found  to  be  empty. 

It  is  well-known  that  a  person  feels  sensations  in 
a  limb,  and  is  conscious  of  its  different  positions, 
as  if  it  were  present,  for  some  time  after  it  has  been 
amputated.  "  Urging  a  patient  who  had  lost  his  leg 
to  move  it,"  says  Sir  Charles  Bell,  "  I  have  seen  him 
catch  at  the  limb  to  guard  it,  as  if  forgetting  that  it 
had  been  removed.  Long  after  his  loss  he  experi- 
enced a  sensation  not  only  as  if  the  limb  remained, 
but  as  if  it  were  placed  or  hanging  in  a  particular 
position  or  posture.  I  have  asked  a  patient,  '  Where 
do  you  feel  your  arm  now  ? '  and  he  has  said,  '  I  feel  it 
as  if  it  lay  across  my  breast,'  or  that  it  is  '  lying  by  my 
side.'  It  seems  also  to  change  with  the  change  of  pos- 
ture of  the  body.  These  are  additional  proofs  of  a 
muscular  sense  ;  that  there  is  an  internal  sensibility  cor- 
responding to  the  changing  condition  of  the  muscles; 
and  that  as  the  sensations  of  an  organ  of  sense  remain, 
after  the  destruction  of  the  outward  organ,  so  a  decep- 
tious  sensibility  to  the  condition  of  the  muscles,  as  well 
as  to  the  condition  of  the  skin,  will  be  felt  after  the  re- 
moval of  a  limb."  * 

*  The  Hand,  its  Mechanism  and  Vital  Endcnvment.  Dr.  Weir 
Mitchell  has  found  that  electrical  stimulation  of  the  nerves  of  a  stump 


t94  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

The  perfect  functions  of  the  motor  residua  are  not 
only  essential  to  the  expression  of  our  active  life,  but, 
like  the  functions  of  the  special  senses,  they  are  essential 
constituent  elements  of  our  mental  life.  In  the  common 
form  of  the  disease  which  is  known  as  general  paralysis 
?f  the  insane  there  are  two  prominent  characteristics  :  the 
first  is  the  general  paralysis,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  of 
the  muscles  of  the  body ;  and  the  second  is  the  extraor- 
dinary delusions  of  grandeur.  It  is  a  question  well  worth 
consideration,  whether  these  characteristic  symptoms  do 
not  stand  in  some  degree  of  causal  connection  with  one 
another.  A  tailor  who  is  suffering  from  general  paralysis 
will  readily  promise  to  make  a  magnificent  coat  or  waist- 
coat, and,  if  the  materials  are  supplied  to  him,  will  at 
once  set  to  work.  It  is  not  improbable  that,  deceived  by 
his  quiet  assurance,  and  knowing  that  to  sew  is  his  busi- 
ness, one  may  believe  that  he  can  make  the  garment 
But,  in  a  little  while,  it  will  be  found  that  his  stitches  are 
most  unequal  in  size,  and  are  placed  in  the  most  dis- 
orderly way ;  and  it  is  made  clear  that,  whatever  he 
himself  may  think,  he  certainly  cannot  sew  properly. 
He  has  a  sufficient  desire  to  accomplish  the  result,  an 
adequate  general  notion  of  the  end  desired,  a  full  belief 
in  his  ability  to  effect  it ;  but  he  fails  because  his  motor 
residua  are  disordered,  and  because  he  cannot  regulate 
precisely  the  action  of  the  necessary  muscles.  And 
because  his  disordered  motor  intuitions  have  invaded 
consciousness,  he  does  not  realise  his  failure,  but  is  happy 
under  the  delusion  that  he  has  accomplished  his  work 
admirably.  We  must  not  overlook  the  effects  upon  con- 
sciousness as  well  as  the  effects  upon  movements  :  as  the 
sleeper,  whose  external  senses  are  so  closed  as  to  shut  out 
the  controlling  influence  of  external  objects,  often  does 
in  his  dreams  the  most  wonderful  things,  and  finds  little 

will  give  rise  to  vivid  feelings  of  different  positions  of  the  lost  limb 
long  after  it  has  been  removed. 


vn (.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  495 

or  no  hindrance  to  an  almost  miraculous  activity,  intel- 
lectual and  bodily  j  so  the  general  paralytic,  whose  dis- 
ordered motor  residua  cut  him  off  from  the  due  apprecia- 
tion of  external  relations,  and  suggest  false  intuitions  of 
these  relations,  has  the  most  extravagant  notions  as  to  his 
personal  power  and  prowess  engendered  in  his  mind ;  he 
dreams  with  his  eyes  open.*  As  we  owe  mainly  to  the 
muscular  sense  the  development  of  our  fundamental 
ideas  of  resistance,  form,  size,  and  space,  it  will  easily  be 
understood  that,  when  this  sense  is  deficient  throughout 
the  body,  as  in  the  general  paralytic,  there  cannot  be 
that  intelligent  accord  between  the  inner  life  and  the 
outward  relations  which,  when  in  a  perfect  state,  it  main- 
tains. Here,  again,  we  perceive  how  impossible  it  is  to 
separate  the  mental  from  the  bodily  life;  how  plainly, 
when  we  scan  the  deeper  relations  of  things  in  their 
genesis,  there  are  displayed  the  closest  connection  and 
continuity  of  parts  and  functions. 

To  the  action  of  the  will,  as  already  pointed  out,  a 
conception  of  the  result  is  essential,  whether  the  voli- 
tional exertion  be  for  the  purpose  of  causing  a  movement, 
of  preventing  or  checking  a  movement,  or  of  dismissing 
a  painful  idea  from  the  mind.  When  a  sensation  excites 
a  co-ordinate  movement  in  so-called  sensori-motor  action, 
we  do  not  say  there  is  a  conception  of  the  result,  because 
of  the  absence  of  consciousness ;  but  at  the  same  time  we 
must  admit  that  there  is  a  definitely  organized  residuum 
in  the  proper  motor  nervous  centre,  which,  as  it  were, 

*  I  once  had  under  my  care  a  general  paralytic  who  was  occa- 
sionally much  excited,  believing  that  he  was  fighting  great  battles, 
and  winning  great  victories  with  his  fists  ;  he  believed,  too,  that  he 
won  immense  sums  of  money  as  wagers  on  his  prowess.  The  dis- 
order of  his  motorium  commune  entered  into  his  thoughts  and 
engendered  corresponding  delusions.  He  was  confined  to  his  bed 
or  couch  by  reason  of  having  lost  one  leg,  or  he  would  have  been  a 
violent  and  dangerous  patient. 


VJ6  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

implicitly  contains  the  movement.  Now  it  is  important 
to  bear  in  mind,  when  the  movement  is  cerebro-motor, 
the  will  exciting  that  co-ordinate  movement  which  a  sen- 
sation alone  may  do,  as  not  unfrequently  happens,  that 
it  cannot  operate  directly  on  the  motor  nerves,  but  must 
necessarily  operate  through  the  medium  of  the  same 
motor  agency  as  that  through  which  the  sensation  acts  : 
in  other  words,  the  movement  in  both  cases  proceeds 
directly  from  the  motor  nervous  centre  in  which  the 
movement  is  latent.  In  both  cases  it  is  truly  reflex,  the 
stimulus  in  one  case  coming  round  by  the  convolutions, 
in  the  other  case  more  directly  across  from  the  senses. 
If  we  could  excite  the  motor  centres  artificially,  not  over- 
exciting  and  injuring  them,  as  in  our  gross  experiments 
we  necessarily  do,  then  we  should  not  fail  to  set  free  the 
definite  movements.  Speaking  psychologically,  the  con- 
ception of  the  result  becomes  in  the  execution  of  volun- 
tary movements  the  motor  intuition,  and  the  motor  in- 
tuition excited  into  activity  expresses  itself  in  the  designed 
movement  through  the  agency  of  the  subordinate  motor 
centres. 

Thus,  then,  it  appears  that,  as  in  the  action  of  nature 
upon  man,  the  stimulus  which  is  not  reflected  in  the 
spinal  cord  passes  upwards  and  excites  sensation,  and 
the  stimulus  which  is  not  reflected  in  sensori-motor  action 
passes  upwards  and  becomes  idea,  and  the  stimulus 
which  is  not  reflected  in  simple  ideomotor  action  passes 
from  cell  to  cell  in  the  hemispheres  and  excites  complex 
ideation  or  reflection  ;  so  in  the  reaction  of  man  upon 
nature,  the  energy  which  we  designate  psychologically  the 
will,  passes  downwards  through  the  subordinate  centres  in 
an  opposite  direction  :  the  will  involves  a  conception  of 
the  result  or  a  definite  ideational  action  ;  the  conception 
of  the  result  demands  for  its  further  transformation  the 
appropriate  motor  intuition ;  and  the  motor  intuition 
gets  its  due  expression  in  movement  through  the  perfect 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  497 

function  of  the  muscular  feeling  and  the  integrity  of  the 
motor  nerves  and  the  muscles.  There  is  an  orderly 
subordination  of  the  different  nervous  centres ;  a  chain 
of  means  such  as  is  revealed  in  every  department  of 
nature.  Taking  a  survey  of  the  different  sciences,  we 
perceive  that  chemistry  is  dependent  on  physics,  while 
physics  is  independent  of  chemistry ;  physiology  is  de- 
pendent on  chemistry,  while  chemistry  is  independent  of 
physiology ;  sociology  is  dependent  on  physiology,  while 
physiology  is  independent  of  sociology  :  and  so  the  just 
analysis  of  our  mental  life  proves  that  sensori-motor 
action  is  dependent  on  reflex  action,  while  reflex  action 
is  independent  of  sensori-motor  action;  ideomotor  ac- 
tion is  dependent  on  sensori-motor  action,  while  sensori- 
motor  action  is  independent  of  ideomotor  action  ;  the 
will  is  dependent  on  ideomotor  action,  while  ideomotor 
action  is  independent  of  the  will.  These  different 
epochs,  as  we  might  call  them,  in  the  order  of  develop- 
ment of  the  nervous  system  are  represented  by  different 
classes  of  the  lower  animals :  and  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that,  as  in  man  there  is  a  subordination  of  parts, 
and  the  will,  as  the  highest  energy,  controls  the  inferior 
modes  of  nervous  energy,  so  in  the  animal  kingdom  there 
is  a  subordination  of  minds,  and  the  mind  of  man,  as  the 
highest  development,  controls  and  uses  the  inferior  minds 
of  many  of  the  lower  animals.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  his  supremacy  has  checked  the  evolution  of 
other  animals  which  would  probably  have  gone  on  had 
he  not  appeared  on  the  earth. 

If  execution  has  been  in  any  wise  answerable  to  con- 
ception, I  have  now  said  enough  to  prove  the.importance 
of  that  region  of  mental  activity  in  which  dwell  the  motor 
residua,  and  which  may  properly  be  named  the  region  of 
actuation.  I  have  only  to  add  that  men  differ  much 
naturally  as  to  the  perfection  of  this  as  of  other  mental 
faculties.  There  are  some  who,  with  great  intellectual 


498  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

power,  never  can  attain  to  the  ability  of  successfully 
expressing  themselves;  there  are  others,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  can  pour  forth  endless  talk  with  the  most 
facile  fluency.  The  art  of  expression  in  speech,  or 
in  writing,  or  even  in  eloquence  of  action,  is  one  which, 
if  there  is  not  an  innate  faculty  for  it,  can  never  be 
acquired  in  its  highest  perfection  :  unseen  fetters  hinder 
the  full  utterance,  and  lame  execution  falls  far  short  of 
ambitious  conception  :  with  the  distinct  conception  of 
what  they  would  say,  and  the  best  will  to  say  it,  there  is 
something  wanting  in  the  region  of  actuation,  whereby 
they  are  prevented  from  doing  justice  to  their  thoughts, 
and  are  compelled,  like  Moses,  to  delegate  that  func- 
tion to  others.  "  There  is  Aaron :  he  shall  be  thy 
speaker,  and  thou  shall  be  to  him  instead  of  God." 
(Exodus  iv.  1 6.)  * 

It  might  be  said  perhaps  that  when  a  person  is  unable 
to  express  his  thoughts  clearly  in  suitable  language  it  is 
that  he  has  not  the  thoughts  clearly  conceived  in  his 
mind,  that  they  are  vague  and  only  half  formed,  floating 
in  an  undefinable,  hazy,  or  nebulous  state.  Without  doubt, 
when  a  thought  can  be  properly  expressed  it  has  acquired 
a  precision  and  a  definiteness  of  relation  to  other  thoughts 
which  it  had  not  before  it  was  embodied  in  language ; 
but  it  may  be  fairly  doubted  whether  it  is  correct  to 
describe  as  only  half  formed  all  those  thoughts  which 
cannot  have  full  justice  done  to  them  in  speech  or 
in  writing.  There  are  few  persons  accustomed  to  think 
who  have  not  experienced  occasions  when  the  mind  has 
seemed  to  be  illuminated  by  a  vivid  flash  of  intuition, 
or  the  emotions  to  have  reached  a  strain  of  exaltation 
which  transcended  the  capacities  of  expression  in  ade- 
quate words  ;  true  or  not,  they  have  believed  themselves 

*  And  a  greater  than  Moses  or  Aaron  was  so  gifted  with  the 
faculty  of  excellent  expression,  that  it  was  said  of  Him  that  "  Never 
man  spake  like  this  man." 


vtir.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  499 

to  have  had  thoughts  too  deep  for  words  and  feelings 
that  were  unutterable.  To  me  it  seems  that  this  occurs 
sometimes  in  coherent  dreaming,  and  that  one  awakes 
with  a  feeling  of  despair  at  the  inability  to  grasp  de- 
finitely and  to  fix  in  words  what  has  passed  through  the 
mind ;  with  a  conviction,  moreover,  that  what  has  been 
lost  was  not  a  mere  illusion,  but  of  genuine  worth. 
How  much,  again,  of  the  depth  and  subtilty  of  thought 
is  sometimes  lost  in  the  feeble  and  inadequate  expres- 
sion !  How  great  a  part  of  the  mental  effect  produced 
by  the  highest  poetry  or  the  best  art  is  that  which  is 
not  expressed,  but  suggested,  and  which  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed, being  unutterable !  It  would  not  be  prudent 
to  predict  what  the  course  of  human  evolution  will 
be  through  the  ages  to  come,  but,  whatever  it  be,  it 
can  hardly  fail  to  be  accompanied  by  a  more  complex, 
special,  and  subtile  development  of  the  powers  of 
expression. 

Certain  it  is  that  there  has  been  a  continuous  develop- 
ment of  language  through  the  past  ages  of  human  life. 
Language  was  not  a  gift  miraculously  bestowed  upon 
man,  nor  a  conscious  invention  which  was  designedly 
improved  by  him,  but  it  is  essentially  an  organic  growth 
which  has  proceeded  from  the  instinctive  or  unconscious 
life,  and  has  been  brought  to  its  present  completeness  by 
the  accumulated  contributions  of  successive  generations 
of  men.  It  would  be  obviously  absurd  to  conclude  con- 
cerning the  beginnings  of  human  language  from  the 
multitude  of  words  possessed  by  any  language  of  the 
earth  at  the  present  day.  If  the  history  of  a  language 
be  traced  back  for  a  few  hundred  years,  it  will  at  once  be 
seen  how  much  it  has  changed  in  that  time ;  how  many 
new  words  have  been  added  to  it ;  and  how  much  some 
old  words  have  gradually  changed  their  meanings,  while 
others  have  fallen  into  disuse  and  become  obsolete. 
Could  we  trace  back  language  to  its  earliest  beginnings, 


5co  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

and  strip  from  it  each  fresh  acquisition  at  the  time  and 
place  where  it  was  made,  we  should  gradually  lay  bare- 
its  early  nakedness  and  poverty,  discovering  it  to  consist 
of  a  few  primitive  roots  answering  to  the  feeble  intel- 
lectual shoots  of  the  race.  But  we  cannot  go  so  far 
back.  When  we  follow  the  course  of  development  of 
the  Indo-European  languages  backwards  as  far  as  we 
can,  there  is  no  certainty  that  the  roots  which  we 
reach  are  original :  on  the  contrary,  it  is  almost  certain 
that  they  are  not ;  that  they  are  transformations ;  that 
what  we  know  to  have  been  going  steadily  on  in  his- 
toric times  has  gone  on  in  the  pre-historic  times  of 
which  we  can  only  darkly  guess. 

Language  in  all  its  forms  consists  of  signs,  and  a  sign 
is  a  particular  movement  which  is  in  definite  connec- 
tion with  a  certain  sensation  or  thought ;  sensory  im- 
pressions or  subjective  states  being  reflected  in  objec- 
tive movements.  The  definite  movement  is  accordingly, 
the  sign  of  the  internal  state,  and  its  relations  are  essen- 
tially social  not  individual.  To  the  action  of  the  envi- 
ronment upon  the  individual  there  is  reaction  by  him  in 
a  modification  of  the  environment — he  feels  and  under- 
stands what  is  in  order  to  determine  what  is  to  be:  were 
he  a  solitary  being,  he  would  require  to  make  only  those 
adapted  movements  that  were  necessary  to  self-preserva- 
tion, such  movements  being,  as  it  were,  a  silent  language 
addressed  to,  and  understood  of,  nature ;  but  as  he  is  not 
a  solitary  but  a  social  being,  as  he  must  react  upon 
human  nature,  he  makes,  in  answer  to  social  impressions, 
for  the  purpose  of  mutual  communication,  movements 
that  are  of  social  meaning,  and  these  movements  develop 
into  the  different  forms  of  language.  Language,  there- 
fore, is  truly  a  social  growth,  giving  unity  and  cohesion 
to  the  social  organism.* 

1  here  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  earliest  form 
*  Comte,  System  of  Positive  Polity,  vol.  il,  Social  Statics, 


via.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  501 

of  language  was  the  involuntary  language  of  action  and 
of  cries,  giving  expression  to  feelings,  and  that  the 
voluntary  language  of  speech,  giving  expression  to 
thoughts,  was  a  later  development.  In  the  higher  ani- 
mals definite  acts  are  the  constant  signs  of  the  feelings 
which  actuate  them ;  they  are  the  language  of  action, 
understood  by  all  creatures  similarly  organized,  and 
understood  by  man  in  virtue  of  the  groundwork  of  or- 
ganization which  he  has  in  common  with  them.  Gestures 
and  cries  are  largely  used  in  like  manner  by  the  lower 
races  of  mankind,  among  whom  the  social  life  is  very 
imperfect,  to  communicate  their  feelings.  The  Bosjes- 
men  are  said  to  make  so  much  more  use  of  gestures  than 
of  speech  that  they  are  unintelligible  to  one  another 
in  the  dark,  and  are  compelled,  when  they  want  to  con- 
verse at  night,  to  assemble  round  their  camp-fires.  To 
this  basis  of  emotional  gesture-language  must  be  traced 
the  source  or  root  of  the  voluntary  language  of  speech 
which  has  reached  so  complex  a  development  in  man. 
For  as  social  relations  were  multiplied  and  expanded, 
and  became  more  special  and  complex,  answering 
multiplications  and  complexities  of  movements  were 
necessitated  ;  the  interchange  of  feelings  passed  into  an 
interchange  of  thoughts ;  and  the  requisite  means  of  in- 
tellectual expression  were  found  in  the  numerous,  com- 
plex and  delicate  movements  of  speech,  the  convenience 
of  whicn  has  led  to  its  almost  exclusive  adoption.  Be- 
cause of  this  development  of  the  complex  voluntary 
language  of  speech  in  man,  the  involuntary  basis  of 
language  is  best  studied  in  the  lower  animals,  where  it 
is  presented  in  its  simplest  form  ;  for  they,  checked  in 
evolution  by  the  ascendency  of  man,  have  never  passed 
from  the  language  of  feeling — gestures  and  cries,  to  the 
language  of  thought — speech.  Cries  and  gestures  are 
also  the  language  of  infants ;  and  under  the  influence  of 
strong  excitement  the  vocal  organs  of  the  adult  act 


5oa  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [CHAP. 

involuntarily,  the  cries  of  joy,  horror,  fear,  amazement 
which  give  utterance  to  the  internal  feelings  being  in- 
telligible, without  instruction,  to  all  beings  similarly 
organized.  When  feeling  is  expressed  in  speech,  it  is 
by  modification  of  the  vocal  tone;  and  tone  is  original,  in- 
voluntary, not  acquired  and  designedly  used.  In  mono- 
syllabic languages  the  same  word  has  different  meanings 
at  the  present  day  according  to  the  tone  in  which  it  is 
uttered.  Thus,  in  the  child  and  in  the  least  developed 
languages  we  find  what  may  be  justly  considered  as  sur- 
vivals of  an  operation  which  has  had  large  sway  in  the 
original  formation  of  language. 

By  whatever  differences  of  tone  of  voice,  or  by  what- 
ever differences  of  movements,  an  animal  may  express 
its  different  feelings,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  animal 
has  ever  got  so  far  as  to  appropriate  a  special  call  to  a 
special  person  or  object — to  name  it ;  unless  it  be  in  a 
few  rare  instances  in  which  it  has  been  taught  to  do  so 
by  man.  Certain  it  is  that  if  animals  have  such  a  power 
it  is  of  the  most  rudimentary  kind,  and  has  not  under- 
gone any  development.  So  soon,  however,  as  a  child 
has  consciously  called  its  father  or  its  mother,  which  it 
soon  learns  to  do  by  using  the  special  call  for  each, 
language  in  its  true  sense  has  commenced.*  In  the  same 
way,  no  doubt,  language  began  with  the  race  of  man : 
special  names  were  given  to  special  objects,  and  special 
words  appropriated  to  express  special  feelings  whereby 
mutual  communication  was  accomplished.  Wien,  as 
we  are  informed,  the  Lord  God,  having  formed  out  of 
the  ground  every  beast  of  the  field  and  every  fowl  of  the 
air,  brought  them  unto  Adam  to  see  what  he  would  call 

*  It  appears  that  the  earliest  sounds  made  by  the  child — Ma  and 
Pa,  are  met  with  in  all  languages.  They  are  natural  sounds,  the 
special  meaning  being  given  to  each  by  the  parents.  For  in  some 
languages  Pa  is  mother,  and  Ma  father.  Volkei'kunJe,  von  Oscar 
rescbcL 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  503 

them,  "  Adam  gave  names  to  all  cattle,  and  to  the  fowl 
of  the  air,  and  to  every  beast  of  the  field,  and  whatso- 
ever Adam  called  every  living  creature,  that  was  the 
name  thereof."  The  story  indicates  the  mode  of  origin  of 
language  as  a  product  of  man's  development ;  and  if 
Adam  be  interpreted  to  mean  the  successive  generations 
of  men  that  have  in  turn  contributed  to  the  formation  of 
language,  as  scientific  theologians  or  theological  scientists 
interpret  the  formation  of  every  living  thing  out  of  the 
ground  to  mean  the  process  of  evolution  going  on 
through  successive  ages,  pious  hearts  need  not  be 
troubled,  but  may  take  courage  and  exult  that  each  new 
scientific  discovery  is  a  new  confirmation  of  faith,  when 
Biblical  history  is  interpreted  in  the  largely  liberal  spirit 
of  those  who  think  "  there  be  not  impossibilities  enough 
in  religion  for  an  active  faith." 

It  does  not  seem  hard  to  conceive  how,  once  the  first 
step  was  reached,  once  the  communication  of  a  thought, 
feeling,  or  want  was  designedly  made  by  one  being,  by 
means  of  a  definite  vocal  expression,  and  was  understood 
by  another,  the  development  of  language  gradually  took 
place  coincident  with,  or  sequent  to,  the  development  of 
intelligence.  But  how  was  the  first  step  made — the  first 
mutual  understanding  come  to  between  the  maker  of  the 
sound  and  the  hearer  of  it  ?  We  may  conceive  perhaps 
how  this  was  if  we  call  to  mind  what  may  be  observed 
any  day  in  the  barn-yard  when  the  cock,  having  dis- 
covered a  grain,  calls  the  hens  by  a  special  note,  who 
understand  and  flock  round  him.  It  may  be  observed 
too  that  he  will  astutely  pretend  to  have  made  a  dis- 
covery, and  will  use  a  similar  call,  when  he  wishes  to 
bring  the  hen  to  him  in  order  to  gratify  his  sexual 
want  That  the  hen  is  sensible  of  the  difference  of  call 
and  apprehends  guile  is  plain,  for  it  often  shows  itself 
coy,  making  a  timid  approach  as  if  suspecting  mischief, 
and  will  not  come  close  to  him,  but  must  be  pursued. 


504  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

Here,  then,  in  the  food-wants  and  the  sexual  wants  we 
perceive  how  there  must  have  arisen  vocal  communi- 
cation and  understanding  thereof  among  primeval  human 
beings.  In  like  manner,  other  feelings  would  have  their 
expression  which  would  be  understood  :  an  angry  bite  or 
blow  or  scratch  could  not  fail  to  give  meaning  to,  and 
to  teach  the  meaning  of,  the  accompanying  tone  or 
gesture. 

It  is  probable,  as  I  have  already  explained,  that  the 
earliest  vocal  language  consisted  of  these  vocal  expres- 
sions of  wants  and  feelings,  and  that  the  naming  of 
objects,  or  the  development  of  language  as  an  instru- 
ment of  the  intellect,  was  subsequent.  How  this 
naming  of  objects  was  done  is  a  question  the  answer 
to  which  must  be  left  to  those  who  are  learned  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  origin  and  development  of  languages, 
when  they  have  come  to  an  agreement  among  themselves. 
To  one  who  has  no  pretence  to  special  knowledge  of  the 
subject  it  would  seem  that  it  was  done  then,  in  the  main, 
as  it  is  done  now  by  children,  by  the  imitation  of  the 
sounds  by  which  attention  was  attracted  to  the  object ; 
that  the  word  was  formed  by  imitation  of  the  sound, 
and  the  connection  of  the  idea  with  it  made  subse- 
quently, sensori-motor  having  preceded  ideo-motor 
function.  Thus  for  example,  the  child  hears  the 
dog  bark,  and  thereupon  imitates  the  sound,  making 
a  bow-wow ;  the  idea  of  a  dog  is  expressed  afterwards 
by  making  this  sound.  It  is  when  a  child  is  born 
deaf,  and  hears  therefore  no  sounds  to  imitate,  that  it  is 
dumb ;  it  is  not  dumb  when  it  is  born  blind,  though  it  is 
then  deprived  of  the  chief  avenue  of  ideas,  because  it 
does  hear  sounds  which  it  imitates.  There  is  in  man  an 
innate  aptitude  to  imitation,  which  may  be  regarded  as  an 
Expression  of  the  reflex  function  of  the  nervous  system  ; 
it  is  very  evident  in  children,  and  more  so  in  the  mimicry 
of  his  next-of-kin,  the  monkeys.  It  is  obvious  that  this 


vni.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  505 

process  of  verbal  naming  by  imitation  could  take  place 
only  in  relation  to  sounds,  and  that  the  perceptions  of  the 
other  senses  must  have  been  named  in  another  way.  Still, 
if  a  person  had  got  so  far  as  to  name  the  perceptions  of 
one  sense,  it  would  not  be  a  great  step  forward  to  desig- 
nate the  perceptions  of  the  other  senses  by  arbitrary  signs  ; 
for  the  deaf  and  dumb  have  invented  their  own  signs, 
drawing  them  from  the  nature  of  the  objects  or  from  the 
outlines  or  principal  movements  of  actions,  and  many  of 
their  signs  are  said  to  be  the  same  as  those  used  by  the 
Indians  from  Hudson's  Bay  to  the  Mexican  Gulf.  Men 
all  over  the  world  do  in  fact  hit  upon  the  same  gesture- 
language  to  express  themselves,  and  we  may  justly  con- 
clude that  if  they  had  not  had  speech  they  would  still 
have  acquired  a  means  of  communicating  with  one 
another  by  signs ;  they  could  not  well  have  helped  it,  so 
long  as  they  were  beings  endowed  with  a  capacity  of  re- 
acting to  multitudinous  impressions  by  answering  varie- 
ties of  movements. 

So  much  then  concerning  the  origin  and  development 
of  language ;  it  is  the  highest  display  of  reflex  function, 
and  the  most  complex  and  special  evolution  of  man's  re- 
lations to  his  social  environment.  Using  the  words  of 
Comte,  we  may  say  that  "it  is  the  expression  of  that 
essential  unity  which  religion  creates,"  being  essentially 
relative  to  the  social  and  not  to  the  individual  side  of 
man,  and  presupposing  the  co-operation  of  men  in  associ- 
ation through  successive  generations.  "The  very  sophism 
by  which  they  [retrograde  philosophers]  blaspheme 
humanity  itself  could  not  be  uttered  at  all,  but  for  a 
system  of  expressions  which  are  the  work  of  long  genera- 
tions of  men."*  These  embody  the  slowly  won  experiences 
of  past  ages  ;  and  in  teaching  them  to  those  who  will 
come  after  us  and  carry  forward  the  torch  when  it  falls 

*  System  of  Positive  Polity,  vol.  ii.  Translated  by  Frederic 
Harrison. 


506  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

from  our  failing  grasp,  we  are  exerting  upon  them  through 
words  all  the  influences  which  the  objects  in  nature 
denoted  by  them  have,  during  countless  ages,  exerted 
upon  those  who  have  gone  before  us ;  for  it  is  in  lan- 
guage that  the  wisdom  of  past  generations  is  enshrined, 
and  through  it  that  each  succeeding  generation  inherits 
the  accumulated  knowledge  of  preceding  generations. 


NOTES. 

1  (p.  487). — "  When  a  blind  man,  or  a  man  blindfolded,  stands 
upright,  neither  leaning  upon  nor  touching  aught ;  by  what  means 
does  he  maintain  the  erect  position  ?  The  symmetry  of  his  body 
is  not  the  cause.  A  statue  of  the  finest  proportion  must  be  soldered 
to  its  pedestal,  e'se  the  wind  will  cast  it  down.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  a  man  sustains  the  perpendicular  posture,  or  inclines  in  due 
degree  towards  the  wind  that  blows  upon  him?  It  is  obvious 
that  he  has  a  sense  by  which  he  knows  the  inclination  of  his  body  ; 
and  that  he  has  a  ready  aptitude  to  adjust  the  parts  of  it,  so  as  to 
correct  any  deviation  from  the  perpendicular.  What  sense  is  this? 
He  touches  nothing,  and  sees  nothing;  there  is  no  organ  of  sense 
hitherto  observed  which  can  aid  him.  Is  it  not  the  sense  which 
we  have  seen  exhibited  so  early  in  the  infant,  in  the  fear  of  falling, 
and  which  caused  its  struggles  while  it  yet  lay  in  the  nurse's  arms  ? 
It  can  only  be  by  the  adjustment  of  muscles  that  the  limbs  are 
stiffened,  the  body  firmly  balanced,  and  kept  erect  ;  and  there  is 
no  other  source  of  knowledge  but  a  sense  of  the  degree  of  exertion 
in  the  muscular  frame  by  which  a  man  can  become  conscious  of  the 
position  of  the  body  and  action  of  the  limbs,  while  he  has  no  point 
of  vision,  or  the  contact  of  any  external  body,  to  direct  his  efforts. 
In  truth,  we  stand  by  so  fine  an  exercise  of  this  power,  and  the 
muscles,  from  habit,  are  directed  with  so  much  precision,  and  with 
an  effort  so  slight,  that  we  do  not  know  how  we  stand.  But  if  we 
attempt  to  walk  on  a  narrow  ledge,  or  rest  in  a  situation  where  we 
are  in  danger  of  falling,  or  balance  on  one  foot,  we  become  sub- 
ject to  apprehension  :  and  the  actions  are  then,  as  it  were,  magnified 
and  demonstrative  of  the  degree  in  which  they  are  excited.  Although 
we  touch  nothing,  and  see  nothing,  yet  we  are  sensible  of  the  posi- 
tion of  our  limbs  ;  that  the  arms  hang  by  the  side,  or  that  they  are 
raised  and  held  out.  And  it  must  be  by  a  property  internal  to  the 


viu.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  507 

frame  that  we  know  this.  At  one  time  I  entertained  a  doubt  whether 
this  knowledge  proceeded  from  a  sense  of  the  condition  of  the 
muscles,  or  from  a  consciousness  of  the  degree  of  effort  which  had 
been  directed  to  them  in  volition .  But  I  reasoned  in  this  manner — 
we  awake  with  the  knowledge  of  the  position  of  our  limbs  ;  this  can- 
not be  from  recollection  of  the  action  which  placed  them  where  they 
are  ;  it  must,  therefore,  be  a  consciousness  of  their  present  condition. 
When  a  person  just  after  awaking  moves  his  body,  it  is  with  a 
determined  object ;  and  before  he  can  desire  a  change  or  direct  a 
movement,  he  must  be  conscious  of  a  previous  condition." — Sir  C. 
HELL,  The  Hand,  Us  Mechanism  and  Vital  Endowments.  The 
question  is  whether  we  do  awake  with  the  knowledge  of  the  posi- 
tion of  our  limbs — whether  we  are  not  without  that  knowledge  until 
some  movement,  it  may  be  ever  so  slight,  is  made. 

2  (fl.  492). — In  the  forty-third  Annual  Report  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Asylum  for  the  Blind,  Dr.  Howe  gives  an  interesting 
description  of  the  method  which  he  employed  for  the  instruction  of 
Laura  Bridgman,  who  was  totally  blind  and  deaf,  and  who  had 
only  a  very  indistinct  sense  of  smell.  I  quote  Dr.  Howe's  descrip- 
tion entire  : — 

"I  found  in  a  little  village  in  the  mountains  a  pretty  and  lively 
girl,  about  six  years  old,  who  was  totally  blind  and  deaf,  and  who 
had  only  a  very  indistinct  sense  of  smell  ;  so  indistinct  that,  un- 
like other  deaf-mutes,  who  are  continually  smelling  at  things,  she 
did  not  smell  even  at  her  food.  This  sense  afterwards  developed 
itself  a  little,  but  was  never  much  used  or  relied  upon  by  her.  She 
lost  her  senses  by  scarlet  fever  so  early  that  she  has  no  recollection 
of  any  exercise  of  them.  Her  father  was  a  substantial  farmer  ; 
and  his  wife  a  very  intelligent  woman.  My  proposal  to  try  to 
give  regular  instruction  to  the  child  seemed  to  be  a  very  wild 
one.  But  the  mother,  a  woman  of  considerable  natural  ability, 
animated  by  warm  love  for  her  daughter,  eagerly  assented  to  my 
proposal,  and  in  a  few  days  little  Laura  was  brought  to  my  house 
in  Boston,  and  placed  under  regular  instruction  by  lessons  impro- 
vised for  the  occasion. 

"  I  shall  not  here  anticipate  what  I  intend  to  write  about  her, 
further  than  to  say  that  I  required  her  by  signs,  which  she  soon 
came  to  understand,  to  devote  several  hours  a  day  to  learning  to  use 
her  hands,  and  to  acquiring  command  of  her  muscles  and  limbs. 
But  my  principal  aim  and  hope  was  to  enable  her  to  recognize  the 
twenty-six  signs  which  represent  the  letters  of  the  alphabet.  She 
submitted  to  the  process  patiently,  though  without  understanding 
its  purpose. 


5o8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

"  I  will  here  give  a  rough  sketch  of  the  means  which  I  contrived 
for  her  mental  development.  I  first  selected  short  monosyllables, 
so  that  the  sign  which  she  was  to  learn  might  be  as  simple  as  pos- 
sible. I  placed  before  her,  on  the  table,  a  pen  and  a  pin,  and  then, 
making  her  take  notice  of  the  fingers  of  one  of  my  hands,  I  placed 
them  in  the  three  positions  used  as  signs  of  the  manual  alphabet  of 
deaf-mutes  for  the  letters  pen,  and  made  her  feel  them,  over  and 
over  again,  many  times,  so  that  they  might  be  associated  together 
in  her  mind.  I  did  the  same  with  the  pin,  and  repeated  it  scores 
of  times.  She  at  last  perceived  that  the  signs  were  complex,  and 
that  the  middle  sign  of  the  one,  that  is  the  e,  differed  from  the  middle 
sign  of  the  other,  that  is  /.  This  was  the  first  step  gained.  This 
process  was  repeated  over  and  over,  hundreds  of  times,  until, 
finally,  the  association  was  established  in  her  mind  between  the 
sign  composed  of  three  signs,  and  expressed  by  three  positions  ol 
my  fingers,  and  the  article  itself,  so  that  when  I  held  up  the  pen  to 
her  she  would  herself  make  the  complex  sign  ;  and  when  I  made  the 
complex  sign  on  my  fingers  she  would  triumphantly  pick  up  the 
pen,  and  hold  it  up  before  me,  as  much  as  to  say,  '  This  is  what 
you  want.' 

"  Then  the  same  process  was  gone  over  with  the  pin,  until  the 
association  in  her  mind  was  intimate  and  complete  between  the 
two  articles  and  the  complex  positions  of  the  fingers.  She  had  thus 
learned  two  arbitrary  signs,  or  the  names  of  the  two  different  things. 
She  seemed  conscious  of  having  understood  and  done  what  I 
wanted,  for  she  smiled,  while  I  exclaimed  inwardly  and  trium- 
phantly, "  ttpiiKa. !  t*pr)Kal"  I  now  felt  that  the  first  step  had 
been  taken  successfully,  and  that  this  was  the  only  really  difficult 
one,  because  by  continuing  the  same  process  by  which  she  had 
become  enabled  to  distinguish  two  articles,  by  two  arbitrary  signs, 
she  would  go  on  and  learn  to  express  in  signs  two  thousand,  and, 
finally,  the  forty  and  odd  thousand  signs  or  words  in  the  English 
language. 

"  Having  learned  that  the  sign  for  these  two  articles,  fin  and 
f-en,  was  composed  of  three  signs,  she  would  perceive  that  in  order 
to  learn  the  names  for  other  things  she  had  got  to  learn  other  signs. 
I  went  on  with  monosyllables,  as  being  the  simplest,  and  she  learned 
gradually  one  sign  of  a  letter  from  another,  until  she  knew  all  the 
arbitrary,  tangible  twenty-six  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  how  to 
arrange  them  to  express  various  objects  :  knife,  fork,  spoon,  thread, 
and  the  like.  Afterwards  she  learned  the  names  of  the  ten  numerals 
or  digits ;  of  the  punctuation  and  exclamation  and  interrogation 
points,  some  forty-six  in  all.  With  these  she  could  express  the 


vni.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  509 

name  of  everything,  of  every  thought,  of  every  feeling,  and  all  the 
numberless  shades  thereof.  She  had  thus  got  the  *  open  sesame'  to 
the  whole  treasury  of  the  English  language.  She  seemed  aware  of 
the  importance  of  the  process  ;  and  worked  at  it  earnestly  and  inces- 
santly, taking  up  various  articles,  and  inquiring  by  gestures  and 
looks  what  signs  upon  her  fingers  were  to  be  put  together  in  order 
to  express  their  names.  At  times  she  was  too  radiant  with  delight 
to  be  able'to  conceal  her  emotions. 

"  It  sometimes  occurred  to  me  that  she  was  like  a  person  alone 
and  helpless  in  a  deep,  dark,  still  pit,  and  that  I  was  letting  down 
a  cord  and  dangling  it  about,  in  hopes  she  might  .find  it  ;  and  that 
finally  she  would  seize  it  by  chance,  and,  clinging  to  it,  be  drawn  up 
by  it  into  the  light  of  day,  and  into  human  society.  And  it  did  so 
happen  :  and  thus  she,  instinctively  and  unconsciously,  aided  in  her 
happy  deliverance.  After  she  had  mastered  the  system  of  arbi- 
trary signs,  made  by  the  various  positions  of  the  fingers  used  by  deaf- 
mutes,  and  called  dactylology,  the  next  process  was  to  teach  her  to 
recognize  the  same  signs  in  types,  with  the  outlines  of  the  letters 
embossed  upon  their  ends.  Thus  with  types,  two  embossed  with  p, 
two  with  «,  one  with  e,  and  another  with  *',  she  could,  by  setting 
them  side  by  side  in  the  quadrilateral  holes  in  the  blind  man's 
slate,  make  the  sign  of  pen  or  pin,  as  she  wished  ;  and  so  with  other 
signs. 

"  The  next  process  was  to  teach  her  that  when  a  certain  kind  of 
paper  was  pressed  firm'y  upon  the  ends  of  these  types,  held  close 
together,  and  side  by  side,  there  would  be  a  tangible  sign  on  the 
reverse  of  the  paper,  as  pin  or  pen,  according  to  the  position  of  the 
three  types  ;  that  she  could  feel  this  paper,  distinguish  the  letters, 
and  so  read  ;  and  that  these  signs  could  be  varied  and  multiplied, 
and  put  together  in  order,  and  so  make  a  book. 

"  Then  she  was  provided  with  types  having  the  outlines  of  the 
letters  made  with  projecting  pin-points,  which,  when  pressed  upon 
stiffened  paper,  pierced  through,  and  left  a  dotted  outline  of  each 
letter  upon  the  reverse  side.  This  she  soon  ascertained  could 
serve  for  writing  down  whatever  she  desired,  and  be  read  by 
herself ;  and  also  could  be  addressed  to  friends,  and  sent  to  them 
by  mail. 

"  She  was  also  taught  to  write  letters  and  words  with  a  lead 
pencil,  by  the  aid  of  the  French  writing-board,  which  is  the  most 
simple,  most  effective,  and  cheapest  method  ever  yet  invented.  This 
apparatus  is  made  out  of  a  piece  of  stiff  pasteboard  of  the  size  of  a 
ccmmon  sheet  of  letter-paper,  and  has  grooved  lines  or  channels, 
about  the  eighth  of  an  inch  deep,  running,  an  inch  apart,  trans- 
23 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 


versely  across  the  pasteboard  plate.  This  pasteboard  is  inserted 
between  the  two  pages  of  a  common  sheet  of  letter-paper,  and  the 
first  leaf  is  pressed  with  the  forefinger  into  the  grooves.  This  leaves 
depressions  or  channels,  the  upper  and  lower  edge  of  which  can  be 
felt  by  the  pencil-point,  and  this,  a  little  pressed,  leaves  it  marked 
with  an  o,  or  an  /,  or  a  /.  The  sides  of  the  grooves  also  give  to  the 
paper  which  is  pressed  between  them  rounded  edges,  so  that  the 
\  encil  can  slide  upwards  and  downwards  over  and  under'  them,  and 
also  be  guided  from  left  to  right. 

"  It  would  occupy  more  space  than  can  be  spared  here  to  explain 
how,  after  she  had  learned  the  names  of  substantive  nouns,  or  names 
of  things  in  the  concrete,  she  came  to  understand  words  expressive 
of  the  various  material  or  moral  qualities  thereof.  The  process  was 
slow  and  difficult,  but  I  was  so  aided  by  her  native  shrewdness  and 
her  love  for  learning  new  things  that  success  followed.  For  instance, 
she  knew  that  some  girls  and  women  of  her  acquaintance  were  very 
sweet  and  amiable  in  their  tempers,  because  they  treated  her  so 
kindly,  and  caressed  her  so  constantly.  She  knew,  also,  that 
others  were  quite  different  in  their  deportment  ;  that  they  avoided 
or  repelled  her,  and  were  abrupt  in  their  motions  and  gestures 
while  in  contact  with  her  ;  and  might  be  called,  therefore,  sour  in 
their  tempers.  By  a  little  skill  she  was  made  to  associate  in  her  mind 
the  first  person  with  a  sweet  apple,  the  other  with  a  sour  apple,  and 
so  there  was  a  sign  for  a  moral  quality.  This  is  a  rough  illustration  ; 
but  it  is  hard  to  explain  the  process  by  which  any  children  come 
to  understand  the  names  of  things  in  the  abstract,  or  moral  qualities. 
Success  came  of  faith,  and  patience,  and  reliance  upon  her  having 
the  native  desire  and  capacity  for  acquiring  a  complete  arbitrary 
language,  which  desire  had  now  become  quickened  to  a  passion  for 
learning  new  signs.  Moreover,  I  was  greatly  aided  from  the  start 
by  young  lady  teachers,  who  became  in  love  with  the  work,  and 
devoted  themselves  to  it  with  saintly  patience  and  perseverance. 
Then  great  assistance  was  given  by  the  blind  pupils,  many  of  whom 
learned  the  manual  alphabet  and  took  every  opportunity  of  using  it 
and  conversing  with  Laura.  Thus  early  in  the  process  the 
material  and  moral  advantages  of  language  began  to  show  them- 
selves. Without  it  the  girls  could  only  manifest  their  interest  in 
Laura,  and  their  affection  for  her,  as  one  does  with  a  baby,  by 
caresses,  sugar-plums  and  other  gifts,  and  by  leading  her  up  and 
down,  and  helping  her  in  various  ways.  With  it  they  began  human 
intercourse  through  regular  language. 

"  And  so  she  went  on,  diligently  and  happily,  for  a  score  or  more 
of  years,  until  at  last  she  acquired  a  large  vocabulary  of  words,  and 


viii.]  MOTOR  NERVOUS  CENTRES.  511 

could  converse  readily  and  rapidly  with  all  deaf-mutes,  and  all 
persons  who  could  use  these  sigas.  She  could  read  printed  books 
readily  and  easily,  finding  out  for  herself,  for  instance,  any  chapter 
and  verse  of  Scripture.  She  could  also  read  letters  from  her  friends 
in  pricked  type,  or  by  the  Braille  system  of  points.  She  could 
also  write  down  her  own  thoughts  and  experiences  in  a  diary  ;  and 
could  keep  up  a  correspondence  with  her  family  and  friends  by  send- 
ing to  them  letters  in  pencil,  and  receiving  their  answers  either  in 
pricked  letters,  which  she  could  read  by  the  touch,  or  letters  written 
with  ink  or  pencil,  which  would  be  read  to  her  by  some  confidential 
seeing  person. 

"Thus  was  she  happily  brought  at  last  into  easy  and  free 
relations  with  her  fellow  creatures,  and  made  one  of  the  human 
family. 

"  During  many  years  Laura  passed  most  of  her  time  in  exercises 
such  as  those  above  described,  new  ones  being  devised  as  she  pro- 
ceeded. She  spent  as  many  hours  daily  in  her  studies  and  mental 
work  as  was  consistent  with  her  health  ;  but  all  the  rest  of  the  time 
was  given  to  gymnastics,  or  learning  to  handle  domestic  implements, 
as  the  broom,  the  dish-cloth,  and  the  needle  ;  to  sew,  to  knit,  to 
braid,  to  occupy  herself  in  simple  hcuse-work,  sweeping  floors, 
dusting  furniture,  making  beds ;  finally,  to  more  difficult  kinds  of 
work,  as  crochet-work  and  the  like. 

"  In  all  these  things  she  succeeded  so  well,  that  she  is  now 
capable  of  earning  a  livelihood  as  assistant  to  any  kind  and  in- 
telligent housekeeper  who  would  accommodate  her  work  to  Laura's 
ways. 

"The  method  of  instruction  was  of  course  novel,  and  the  pro- 
cess long  and  tedious,  extending  over  several  years,  until  she  came 
to  be  able  to  read  and  understand  books  in  raised  letters  ;  to  mark 
down  variously  shaped  signs  upon  a  grooved  paper,  and  so  write 
letters  legible  by  the  eye  ;  to  attain  a  pretty  wide  command  of  the 
words  of  the  English  language,  to  spell  them  out  rapidly  and  cor- 
rectly, and  so  express  her  thoughts  in  visible  signs  and  in  good 
English.  To  make  all  this  fully  understood  by  specimens  of  her 
style  as  she  used  the  language  of  childhood,  will  require  a  good- 
sized  volume ;  and  I  confine  myself  now  merely  to  saying  that  in 
the  course  of  twenty  years  she  was  enabled  to  do  it  all.  She  has 
attained  such  facility  for  talking  in  the  manual  alphabet,  that  I 
regret  that  I  did  not  try  also  to  teach  her  to  speak  by  the  vocal 
organs,  or  regular  speech.  The  few  words  which  she  has  learned 
to  pronounce  audibly  prove  that  she  could  have  learned  more." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION. 

"  You  tell  me  it  consists  of  images  or  pictures  of  things.  Where 
is  this  extensive  canvas  hung  up  ?  or  where  are  the  numerous  re- 
ceptacles in  which  these  are  deposited  ?  or  to  what  else  in  the 
animal  system  have  they  any  similitude?  That  pleasing  picture 
of  objects  represented  in  miniature  on  the  retina  of  the  eye  seems 
to  have  given  rise  to  this  illusive  oratory.  It  was  forgot  that  this 
representation  belongs  rather  to  the  laws  of  light  than  to  those  of 
life ;  and  may  with  equal  elegance  be  seen  in  the  camera  obscun 
as  in  the  eye  ;  and  that  the  picture  vanishes  for  ever  when  the  object 
is  withdrawn." — DR.  DARWIN,  Zoonomia. 

HITHERTO  nothing  special  has  been  said  concerning 
memory,  although  its  existence  has  been  necessarily  as- 
sumed, and  its  nature  indicated,  in  the  foregoing  pages. 
No  mental  development  would  be  possible  without  it, 
for  if  a  man  possessed  it  not  he  would  be  obliged  to 
begin  his  conscious  life  afresh  with  each  impression  made 
upon  him,  and  would  be  incapable  of  any  education. 
We  cannot  perhaps  better  define  memory  than,  following 
Locke,  as  the  power  which  the  mind  has  "  to  revive  per- 
ceptions which  it  once  had,  with  this  additional  perception 
annexed  to  them,  that  it  has  had  them  before ; "  in  other 
words,  as  the  power  or  process  by  which  that  which 
has  been  once  known  is,  when  represented  to  the  mind, 
known  as  a  previous  mental  experience,  that  is,  is  re- 
cognised. When  people  speak  of  ideas  being  laid  up  in 
the  memory,  they  of  course  speak  metaphorically ;  there 


CHAP,  ix.]      MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  513 

is  no  such  repository  in  which  ideas  are  stored  up,  ready 
to  be  brought  out  when  required  for  use  ;  when  an  idea 
which  we  have  once  had  is  excited  again,  there  is  simply 
a  reproduction  of  the  same  nervous  current,  with  the 
conscious  addition  that  it  is  a  reproduction — it  is  the 
same  idea  plus  the  consciousness  that  it  is  the  same.  The 
question  then  suggests  itself,  What  is  the  physical  condi- 
tion of  this  consciousness  ?  What  is  the  modification  of 
the  anatomical  substrata  of  fibres  and  cells,  or  of  their 
physiological  activity,  which  is  the  occasion  of  this  plus 
element  in  the  reproduced  idea  ?  It  may  be  supposed 
that  the  first  activity  did  leave  behind  it,  when  it  sub- 
sided, some  after-effect,  some  modification  of  the  nerve 
element,  whereby  the  nerve  circuit  was  disposed  to  fall 
again  readily  into  the  same  action ;  such  disposition 
appearing  in  consciousness  as  recognition  or  memory. 
Memory  is,  in  fact,  the  conscious  phase  of  this  physio- 
logical disposition  when  it  becomes  active  or  discharges 
its  functions  on  the  recurrence  of  the  particular  mental 
experience.  To  assist  our  conception  of  what  may 
happen,  let  us  suppose  the  individual  nerve-elements 
to  be  endowed  with  their  own  consciousness,  and  let  us 
assume  them  to  be,  as  I  have  supposed,  modified  in  a 
certain  way  by  the  first  experience ;  it  is  hard  to  conceive 
that  when  they  fall  into  the  same  action  on  another 
occasion  they  should  not  recognise  or  remember  it ;  for 
the  second  action  is  a  reproduction  of  the  first,  with  the 
addition  of  what  it  contains  from  the  after-effects  of  the 
first.  As  we  have  assumed  the  process  to  be  conscious, 
this  reproduction  with  its  addition  would  be  a  memory 
or  remembrance. 

Psychology  affords  us  not  the  least  help  in  this  matter, 
for  in  describing  memory  as  a  faculty  of  the  mind  or  the 
conservative  faculty  it  does  no  more  than  present  us  with 
a  name  in  place  of  an  explanation.  But  we  do  get  nearer 
realities  when  we  go  down  to  the  organic  aptitude  which, 


Si4  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

in  consequence  of  an  action,  there  is  to  the  recurrence 
of  a  similar  action  on  another  occasion.  And  physiology 
presents  us  with  many  illustrations  of  such  organized 
aptitudes.  Take,  for  example,  the  education  of  our 
movements  :  a  designed  movement  is  performed  at  first 
slowly  and  clumsily,  and  it  is  only  by  giving  great  pains 
to  it  and  frequently  repeating  it  that  we  acquire  the  skill 
to  perform  it  easily  and  quickly;  the  aptitude  thereto 
being  at  last  so  completely  organized  in  the  proper 
nervous  centres  that  it  may  be  performed  without  con- 
sciousness on  our  part,  quite  automatically.  Thus  it 
appears  that  memory  in  this  case  becomes  less  conscious 
as  it  becomes  more  complete,  until,  when  it  has  reached 
its  greatest  perfection  and  is  performed  with  the  most 
facility,  it  is  entirely  unconscious.  After  which,  if  we 
are  psychologists  who  are  content  to  rest  in  words 
and  forbear  to  pursue  the  facts  which  they  denote,  we 
must  cease  to  speak  of  it  as  memory :  it  has  become 
custom,  or  habit,  or  automatism.  But  if  we  go  beneath 
words  to  the  property  of  the  motor  nerve-centres  whereby 
they  react  in  a  definite  way  to  impressions  made  upon 
them,  organically  register  their  experience,  and  so  acquire 
by  education  their  special  faculties,  we  perceive  that  we 
have  not  to  do  in  the  higher  nerve-centres  with  funda- 
mentally different  properties  of  nerve  element,  but  with 
different  functions  which  depend  upon  the  same  fun- 
damental property.  Substitute  the  highest  nerve-centres 
for  the  motor  nerve-centres,  and  the  complex  idea  for  the 
complex  movement,  and  what  has  been  said  of  the  latter 
is  strictly  true  of  the  former;  the  idea,  like  the  move- 
ment, is  accompanied  with  less  consciousness  the  more 
completely  it  is  organized,  and  when  it  has  been  com- 
pletely organized  it  takes  its  part  automatically  in  our 
mental  operations,  being  performed,  as  a  habitual  move- 
ment is  performed,  automatically.  (z)  The  physiological 
condition  of  memory  is,  then,  the  organic  process  by 


IX. ]  MEMOR  Y  AND  IMA  GAVA  T10X.  5 1 5 

which  nerve-experiences  in  the  different  centres  are 
registered  ;  and  to  recollect  is  to  revive  these  experi- 
ences in  the  highest  centres,  the  functions  of  which  are 
attended  with  consciousness — to  stimulate,  by  external 
or  internal  causes,  their  residua,  aptitudes,  dispositions, 
or  whatever  else  we  may  choose  to  call  them,  into 
functional  activity.  Stimulated  from  without,  they  con- 
stitute recognition,  that  is,  cognition  with  memory  of 
former  cognition;  stimulated  from  within,  they  constitute 
recollection. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  as  Dr.  Darwin  remarked 
many  years  ago,  that  in  dealing  with  memory  we  have  to  do 
not  with  laws  of  light,  but  with  laws  of  life,  and  that  the 
misleading  notion  of  images  or  ideas  of  objects  being 
stored  up  in  the  mind  has  been  derived  from  our  ex- 
perience of  the  action  of  light  upon  the  retina.  If  we 
would  understand  the  laws  of  organization  in  the  highest 
nerve-centres,  we  shall  certainly  do  well  to  study  organic 
processes  generally ;  it  would  be  not  less  absurd  to  at- 
tempt to  understand  the  higher  processes  without  giving 
attention  to  the  lower,  than  it  would  be  to  attempt  to 
build  a  house  without  taking  pains  to  lay  its  foundations 
securely.  It  is  a  plain  matter  of  observation  that  other 
organic  elements  besides  nervous  elements  perpetuate 
impressions  made  upon  them,  which  they  may  accord- 
ingly in  a  certain  sense  be  said  to  remember ;  the  virus 
of  small-pox,  for  example,  makes  an  impression  upon  all 
the  elements  of  the  body,  which  they  never  lose,  although 
it  becomes  fainter  with  the  lapse  of  time ;  in  some  un- 
known way  it  modifies  their  constitution  so  that  ever 
afterwards  their  susceptibilities  are  changed.  The  scar 
which  is  left  after  the  healing  of  a  wound  in  a  child's 
finger  keeps  the  same  relative  proportion  to  the  finger 
through  life,  growing  as  it  grows ;  for  the  elements  of  the 
new  tissue  not  only  renew  themselves  particle  by  particle, 
and  thus  perpetuate  it,  but  they  extend  it  in  relation  with 


516  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

the  growth  of  the  surrounding  parts.  Perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  example  of  the  exceeding  impressionability 
of  organic  element  is  afforded  fey  the  minute  germ-cell 
or  sperm-cell,  which  carries  in  its  constitution  not  only 
the  particular  dispositions  of  the  several  tissues  of  the 
parent,  but  even,  as  there  is  good  reason  to  believe,  the 
particular  mood  of  mind  which  prevailed  at  the  time  of 
its  secretion.  We  need  not  brave  the  fire  of  psycho- 
logical scorn  by  calling  this  retention  of  impressions 
memory,  or  care  greatly  what  it  is  called,  so  long  as  due 
heed  is  given  to  the  fact ;  but  we  may  be  permitted  to 
perceive  in  it  the  same  physiological  process  which,  in 
the  cortical  layers  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  is  the 
condition  of  memory,  and  of  habit  in  thought.  More- 
over, it  may  be  fairly  demanded  of  the  psychologists 
that  they  be  consistent,  and  that  they  no  longer  use  the 
word  memory  to  denote  those  mental  processes  which 
have  been  so  completely  organized  that  they  take  place 
without  consciousness ;  if  it  be  wrong,  as  they  profess, 
to  assume  or  imply  an  unconscious  memory,  it  must 
be  still  more  wrong  to  assume  or  imply  an  unconscious 
consciousness,  as  they  sometimes  do. 

In  any  case,  the  foregoing  considerations  cannot 
fail  to  show  how  misleading  it  is  to  look  upon  per- 
ceptions as  mere  pictures  of  nature,  and  upon  the 
mind  as  a  vast  canvas  on  which  they  are  cunningly 
painted ;  the  real  process  is  one  of  organization,  and 
is  rightly  conceivable  only  by  the  aid  of  ideas  derived 
from  the  observation  of  organic  development — namely, 
the  fundamental  ideas  of  Assimilation  of  the  like  and 
Differentiation  of  the  unlike.  Nowhere  is  it  more 
necessary  than  in  the  study  of  memory  to  apprehend 
clearly  that  what  we  call  mind  is  the  function  of  a 
mental  organization  ;  for  thereby  we  get  rid  at  once  of 
many  empty  discussions  which  have  been  carried  on 
without  definite  result ;  as,  for  example,  whether  memory 


•x.  ]  MEM  OR  Y  AND  IMA  GIN  A  TION.  5 1 7 

is  a  knowledge  of  the  past,  or  a  knowledge  of  the  pre- 
sent with  a  belief  of  the  past,  and  the  like.  Moreover, 
this  conception  of  a  mental  organization  is  indispensable 
to  the  explanation  of  the  manifold  varieties  of  partial  or 
general  loss  of  memory  which  are  produced  by  injury, 
disease,  and  decay  of  brain ;  for  memory  is  good  or  bad 
according  to  bodily  states,  is  impaired  in  various  ways  by 
disease,  decays  with  the  decay  of  structure  in  old  age, 
and  is  extinguished  with  the  extinction  of  life  in  the 
brain. 

From  of  old  two  kinds  of  memory  have  been  distin- 
guished, according  as  the  object  remembered  occurs  to 
the  mind  spontaneously,  or  is  voluntarily  sought  for; 
the  former  being  known  as  memory  proper,  the  latter  as 
recollection.  It  is  certain  that  we  do  recognise  this  differ- 
ence, which  common  language  attests,  between  that  which 
is  revived  without  any  effort,  and  that  which  we  endea- 
vour to  recover  by  an  effort ;  and  that  men  differ  much, 
by  virtue  of  natural  capacities,  both  in  memory  and  in 
power  of  recollection.  No  doubt  much  of  the  difference 
in  both  cases  is  due  to  the  degree  of  attention  which  is 
given  to  the  subject  when  it  is  first  presented  to  the 
mind,  but  this  will  not  account  satisfactorily  for  all  the 
difference  which  is  observed ;  some  persons  being  able 
to  repeat  with  great  ease  a  row  of  figures,  a  number  of 
dates,  or  several  lines  of  poetry,  after  reading  them  over 
once,  while  others  fail  to  do  so  with  equal  success  after 
reading  them  over  many  times.  Extraordinary  instances 
have  been  recorded  of  this  exactness  of  memory  for  de- 
tails reaching  back  to  the  earliest  periods  of  life.  I  have 
seen  an  imbecile  in  the  Earlswood  Asylum  for  idiots 
who  can  repeat  accurately  a  page  or  more  of  any  book 
which  he  has  read  years  before,  even  though  it  was  a 
book  which  he  did  not  understand  in  the  least ;  and  I 
once  saw  an  epileptic  youth,  morally  imbecile,  who  would, 
shutting  his  eyes,  repeat  a  leading  article  in  a  nswspaper 


Si8  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

word  for  word,  after  reading  it  once.*  This  kind  of 
memory,  in  which  the  person  seems  to  read  a  photographic 
copy  of  former  impressions  with  his  mind's  eye,  is  not 
indeed  commonly  associated  with  great  intellectual  power; 
for  what  reason  I  know  not,  unless  it  be  that  the  mind 
to  which  it  belongs  is  prevented  by  the  very  excellence 
of  its  power  of  apprehending  and  recalling  separate  facts 
from  rising  to  that  discernment  of  their  higher  relations 
which  is  involved  in  reasoning  and  judgment,  and  so 
stays  in  a  function  which  should  be  the  foundation  of  its 
further  development ;  or  that,  being  by  some  natural  de- 
fect prevented  from  rising  to  the  higher  sphere  of  com- 
prehension of  relations,  it  applies  all  its  energies  to  the 
apprehension  of  details.f  Certainly  one  runs  some  risk, 
by  overloading  the  memory  of  a  child  with  details,  of 
arresting  the  development  of  the  mental  powers  :  stereo- 
typing details  on  the  brain,  we  prevent  that  further  de- 
velopment of  it  which  consists  in  rising  from  concrete 
perception  to  conception  of  relations.  However,  it  must 
be  allowed  that  there  have  been  a  few  remarkable  in- 
stances of  extraordinary  men  who  have  combined  a 
wonderful  memory  for  details  with  the  possession  of 
the  highest  intellectual  powers.^ 

If  we  now  proceed  to  examine  closely  the  nature  of 
recollection,  it  will  be  found  that  the  difference  between 
it  and  simple  memory  is  not  fundamentally  so  great  as 
appears  on  the  surface.  When  we  voluntarily  try  hard 

*  I  have  been  informed  of  a  similar  case  in  which  the  person 
could  repeat  backwards  what  he  had  just  read. 

f  We  know  that  the  convolutions  consist  of  several  layers  or  strata, 
the  higher  of  which  may  be  presumed  to  have  higher  functions  than 
the  lower ;  it  is  possible  that  in  the  defective  brain  of  the  idiot  these 
higher  strata  of  cells  and  fibres  may  be  imperfectly  developed  or 
altogether  wanting. 

i  Macaulay  may  be  cited  as  a  remarkable  instance ;  for  in  him 
great  intellectual  powers  were  associated  with  an  extraordinary 
memory  for  words,  dates,  facts,  &c. 


tx.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  519 

to  remember  something  which  has  been  forgotten,  and 
succeed  in  the  end,  the  actual  rsvivai  is  done  uncon- 
sciously and,  as  it  were,  spontaneously ;  for  it  is  plain 
that  if  we  were  conscious  of  what  we  want  we  should 
not  need  to  recollect  it,  inasmuch  as  it  would  already 
be  in  possession  ;  and  it  is  furthermore  plain  that  a  defi- 
nite act  of  volition  recalling  it  must  imply  a  conscious- 
ness of  it,  inasmuch  as  it  is  impossible  to  will  what  we 
are  not  conscious  of.  Arbitrary  recollection  by  an  act  of 
will  is  therefore  nonsense.  What  we  really  do  when  we 
try  to  recollect  is  to  apply  attention  to  words  or  ideas 
which  have,  in  our  past  experience,  accidental  or  es- 
sential relations  to,  or  associations  with,  the  forgotten 
•word  or  idea,  voluntarily  to  keep  these  ideas  active  by 
making  them  consciousness,  and  to  trust  to  their  power 
of  awakening  into  activity  that  which  it  is  desired  to 
recall ;  indeed,  it  is  notorious  that  the  best  way  of 
succeeding  is,  having  held  the  related  ideas  energeti- 
cally in  attention  for  a  time,  to  allow  the  thoughts  to 
pass  to  other  things,  when  the  lost  idea  will,  after  a 
longer  or  shorter  time — sometimes  indeed  after  days — 
recur  to  the  mind.  The  actual  process  of  reproduction 
is  therefore  one  of  simple  or  spontaneous  memory ;  we 
prepare  the  way  for  it  by  stimulating  into  action  the 
related  ideas,  but  we  positively  interfere  with  its  success  if, 
by  continuing  to  keep  them  in  attention,  we  do  not  permit 
them  to  do  their  work  spontaneously ;  the  reason  of  this 
being  that  we  thereby,  as  set  forth  in  a  former  chapter, 
hinder  the  propagation  of  their  activity  to  other  nerve- 
circuits.  We  shall  understand  this  the  better  if  we 
realize  that  consciousness  is  the  result  of  a  certain  activity 
of  idea,  not  driven  to  it  but  drawn  by  it,  and  get  rid  of 
the  metaphysical  notion  that  it  is  some  mysterious  power 
which  we  direct  voluntarily  to  the  idea  in  order  to  make 
it  active. 

It  will  not  be  amiss,  before  passing  from  this  subject,  to 


520  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

take  note  of  and  to  ponder  that  certainty  which,  in  try- 
ing to  recollect  something,  we  have  of  our  possession  of 
what  we  are  thus  striving  to  regain  consciously,  though 
we  are  not  conscious  what  it  is.  We  have  the  clearest 
conviction  that,  although  we  have  forgotten  it,  we  still 
have  it  and  may  recover  it.  How  comes  it  to  pass  that 
we  are  so  sure  of  the  existence  of  that  of  which  we  are 
not  conscious  ?  In  the  first  place,  it  would  appear  to 
supply  an  argument  in  support  of  the  theory  that  some- 
thing has  been  left  behind  in  the  nerve-circuit  ministering 
to  the  forgotten  idea,  in  other  words,  retained  by  it, 
which  differentiates  it  from  other  nerve-circuits,  disposes 
it  to  a  repetition  of  its  former  activity,  and  produces  the 
conviction  of  a  latent  possession,  even  when  it  is  not 
active,  or  at  any  rate  not  active  enough  to  awaken  con- 
sciousness. In  the  second  place,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  forgotten  idea  had  associations  with  other  ideas, 
which  are  really  part  of  its  meaning ;  it  may  well  be,  there- 
fore, that  when  these  are  active  and  occupy  the  attention, 
while  it  remains  inactive  and  below  the  horizon  of  con- 
sciousness, there  is  a  tendency  or  sort  of  effort  to  reopen 
the  former  paths  of  association,  in  order  to  their  com- 
pleteness— to  make  the  circuit,  so  to  speak ;  and  that  it  is 
the  consciousness  of  this  tendency  or  effort  which  gives 
rise  to  the  certainty  which  we  have  of  something  for- 
gotten. Certain  it  is,  that  when  a  stimulus  excites  one 
of  two  movements  which  have  taken  place  together  or 
in  succession  on  former  occasions,  there  is  a  tendency, 
when  the  stimulus  is  powerful  or  continued,  to  the  re- 
production of  the  associated  movement ;  there  is  a  diffu- 
sion of  the  stimulus  along  the  accustomed  path  to  the 
associated  motor  centres,  and  a  synergy  of  movements  is 
the  result.  A  piece  of  poetry  which  has  been  thoroughly 
learnt  may  be  repeated  mechanically,  as  a  tune  may  be 
whistled,  when  the  proper  verbal  movements  have  been 
once  started  ;  indeed,  the  repetition  in  such  case  is  most 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  521 

successful  when  consciousness  is  not  too  much  occupied 
with  it ;  for  it  frequently  happens,  if  we  think  about  the 
words  which  we  are  repeating,  that  we  become  uncertain 
and  forget,  and  are  obliged,  in  order  to  succeed,  to  begin 
again  and  to  allow  the  succession  of  movements  to  go 
on  automatically.  We  impede  the  operation  of  the  spon- 
taneous memory,  upon  which  we  really  depend,  when,  by 
maintaining  the  activity  of  a  word  in  consciousness  as 
attention,  we  hinder  the  propagation  theieof  to  the  asso- 
ciated nerve-circuits. 

When  a  person  who  is  conscious  of  an  idea  is  striving 
to  revive  a  related  idea  which  he  has  forgotten,  he  presents 
an  example  of  memory  in  the  making ;  for  he  is  striving 
to  revive  the  yet  incomplete  organic  union  between  them, 
which  was  the  result  of  the  original  apprehension  of  their 
relations,  and  which,  when  complete,  will  cause  the  one 
idea  to  recall  the  other  instantly  and  without  the  least 
effort,  just  as  a  single  sensation  of  an  object  at  once  re- 
vives the  cluster  of  sensations  which  are  combined  in 
the  perception  of  it.  The  process  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment  consists  in  the  mental  organization  of  related 
ideas,  as  internal  representatives  of  external  relations  in 
nature,  and  in  making  this  organization  so  complete  that 
a  number  of  associated  ideas  shall  act  like  a  single  idea, 
being  combined  into  a  complex  product  and  recalled 
instantly  and  without  conscious  effort,  just  as  a  complex 
movement  is.  Then  the  memory  is  so  complete  that  we 
must  cease  to  call  it  memory,  because  it  is  unconscious. 
In  fact,  spontaneous  recollection  is  at  an  end  when  in- 
voluntary memory  begins,  and  involuntary  memory 
merges  gradually  into  a  reproduction  of  former  mental 
experiences  which  is  as  completely  automatic  as  the 
habitual  movements  of  our  daily  life.  And  well  it  may 
be ;  for  the  same  organic  property  of  nerve  element — 
indeed,  I  might  say,  the  same  fundamental  property  of 
organization — is  at  the  bottom  of  both. 


522  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  Ml M).  [CHAP. 

Thus  much  concerning  the  nature  and  function  of 
memory.  Upon  its  basis  rests  the  possibility  of  mental 
development,  in  which  there  are,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
the  organic  registration  of  the  simple  ideas  of  the  senses  ; 
the  assimilation  of  the  like  in  ideas  which  takes  place  in 
the  production  or  evolution  of  general  ideas  ;  the  assimi- 
lation of  the  properties  common  to  two  or  more  general 
ideas  into  an  abstract  idea ;  the  special  organization,  or 
differentiation,  or  discrimination,  of  unlike  ideas;  the 
organic  combination  of  the  ideas  derivedvfrom  the  differ- 
ent senses  into  one  complex  idea,  with  the  further  mani- 
fold combinations  of  complex  ideas  into  what  Hartley 
called  duplex  ideas.  In  fact,  no  limit  is  assignable  to 
the  complexity  of  combinations  which  may  go  to  the 
formation  of  a  compound  idea.  Take,  for  example,  the 
idea  of  the  universe.  But  how  comes  it  to  pass  that  a 
new  imaginative  creation  of  the  mind,  to  which  nothing 
in  nature  answers,  is  effected?  By  the  same  process 
fundamentally  as  that  by  which  our  general  and  abstract 
ideas  are  formed.  For  when  we  consider  the  matter,  it 
appears  that  there  are  no  actual  outside  existences  an- 
swering to  our  most  abstract  ideas,  which  are,  therefore, 
so  far  new  creations  of  the  mind ;  in  their  formation  \ 
there  is  a  blending  or  coalescence  of  the  like  relations 
in  two  concrete  ideas — the  development  of  a  concept ,  ' 
there  is,  as  it  were,  an  extraction  of  the  essential  out  of 
the  particular,  a  sublimation  of  the  concrete;  and,  by 
the  creation  of  a  new  world  in  which  these  essential 
ideas  supersede  the  concrete  ideas,  the  power  of  the 
mind  is  most  largely  extended.  Now,  although  there 
are  no  concrete  objects  in  nature  answering  to  these 
abstract  ideas,  yet  these  are  none  the  less,  when  rightly 
formed,  valid  and  real  subjective  existences  expressing 
or  signifying  the  essential  relations  of  things,  as  the 
flower  which  crowns  development  expresses  the  essential 
nature  of  the  plant.  Thus  it  is  that  we  rise  from  the 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  523 

idea  of  a  particular  man  to  the  general  idea  of  man,  and 
from  that  to  the  abstract  idea  of  virtue  as  a  quality  of 
man ;  so  that  for  the  future  we  can  make  use  of  the 
abstract  idea  in  all  our  reasoning,  without  being  com- 
pelled to  make  continual  reference  to  the  concrete.* 
Herein,  be  it  remembered  again,  we  have  a  process  cor- 
responding with  that  which  ministers  to  the  production 
of  our  motor  intuitions  ;  the  acquired  faculty  of  certain 
co-ordinate  movements  by  means  of  which  complicated 
acts  are  automatically  performed,  and  we  are  able  to  do, 
almost  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  what  would  cost  hours 
of  labour  if  we  were  compelled  on  each  occasion  to  go 
deliberately  through  the  process  of  special  adaptation, 
is  the  equivalent,  on  the  motor  side,  of  the  general  idea 
by  which  so  much  time  and  labour  are  saved  in  reason- 
ing :  in  both  cases  there  is  an  internal  development  in 
accordance  with  fundamental  laws,  and  the  organized 
result  is,  as  every  new  phase  of  development  is,  a  new 
creation.  Creation  is  not  by  fits  and  starts,  but  it  is 
continuous  in  nature. 

These  considerations  are  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
respect  of  the  nature  of  Imagination,  which  must  ever 
be  incomprehensible  on  the  mischievous  assumption  of 
ideas  being  pictures  or  images  of  things  painted  on  the 
mind  by  memory.  Though  imagination  is  certainly  de- 
pendent on  memory,  there  is  unquestionably  something 
more  in  imagination  than  memory  only  ;  it  is  not  repro- 
ductive only,  as  memory  is  or  should  be,  but  productive; 
it  brings  back  the  old,  but  with  a  new  form — that  is,  is 

*  Not  overlooking,  as  so  many  do,  that  the  meaning  of  the 
general  or  abstract  is  to  be  sought  in  the  concrete,  not  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  concrete  in  the  general  or  abstract.  If  we  have  any 
doubt  about  the  meaning  of  an  abstract  idea,  or  doubt  whether  it  has 
any  meaning,  we  ought  to  trace  it  downwards  to  its  root  in  per- 
ception, and  discover  its  meaning  there  ;  above  all  we  ought  not  to 
convert  it  into  an  objective  entity,  and  then  to  spin  webs  of  argu- 
ment concerning  it  as  the  schoolmen  did. 


524  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MI\'D.  [CHAP. 

productive  as  to  form,  reproductive  as  to  material.  When 
any  one  affirms  that  he  can  imagine  something — as,  for 
example,  some  animal  of  which  he  has  not  had  experi- 
ence, what  he  does  is  to  combine  into  one  form  certain 
selected  characters  of  different  animals  of  which  he  has 
had  experience ;  creating  in  this  way,  as  nature  is  con- 
tinually doing,  new  forms  out  of  old  material.  When 
the  artist  embodies  in  ideal  form  the  result  of  his  faithful 
observation,  he  has,  by  virtue  of  that  mental  process 
through  which  general  ideas  are  formed,  abstracted  the 
essential  from  the  concrete,  and  then  by  the  shaping 
power  of  imagination  given  to  it  a  new  embodiment. 
In  every  great  work  of  art,  poem  or  painting,  there  is 
thus  an  involution  of  the  universal  in  the  concrete :  it 
is  pregnant  in  its  meaning,  yielding  a  wide  range  to  the 
action  of  another's  imagination  when  he  contemplates  it. 
If  it  is  merely  a  copy  or  exact  reproduction  of  nature,  it  is 
clever  artifice  rather  than  great  art,  and  excites  a  feeling 
of  gratified  interest  at  the  skill  displayed  rather  than  vague 
and  elevating  emotions  of  sympathy  with  a  deep  truth 
embodied  in  beautiful  form.  So  it  is  that  high  art  does 
not  express  anything  essentially  evanescent :  it  confers  on 
the  moment  the  steadfastness  of  eternity,  representing 
the  "  shows  of  nature  frozen  into  a  motionless  immor- 
tality." The  man  of  science,  who  unlocks  the  secrets  of 
Nature  by  means  of  observation,  experiment,  and  re- 
flection, thus  systematically  training  his  mind  in  con- 
formity with  Nature  by  exact  interrogation  and  faithful 
interpretation  of  her  works,  foresees  future  combinations, 
and  when  he  proceeds  to  react  upon  nature,  is  enabled, 
by  means  of  a  scientific  imagination  thus  carefully  culti- 
vated, to  construct  wonderful  works  of  art  that  are  truly 
an  advance  upon,  or  a  development  of,  nature — new 
creations ;  forming  combinations  in  harmony  with  these 
real  and  essential  relations  of  things  which  he  has  by 
patient  and  sympathetic  observation  made  a  part  of  the 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  525 

furniture  of  his  mind,  he  creates  something  which  is  a 
result  of  the  nisus  of  evolution  working  in  him,  a  pro- 
gress of  nature  through  him,  and  which  serves  ever  after- 
wards to  inform,  elevate,  and  better  mankind. 

What  else  then,  fundamentally,  is  the  true  imagination 
but  the  nisus  of  nature's  organic  development  displaying 
itself  in  man's  highest  function  ?  It  is  the  evolution  of 
the  mental  organization.  What  is  human  art  but  nature 
developed  through  man ;  nature  as  it  has  been  moulded 
by  the  infused  spirit — the  inspiration — of  man?  In- 
formed of  nature,  in  turn  he  informs  nature.  There  is 
going  on  a  recreation  of  nature  by  human  means,  but 
nature  makes  the  means.*  The  productive  or  creative 
power  of  Imagination,  which  seems  at  first  sight  to  be 
irreconcilable  with  knowledge  gained  entirely  through 
experience,  is  then  at  bottom  another,  though  the  high- 
est, manifestation  of  that  force  which  impels  organic 
development  throughout  nature  ;  and  the  imagination  of 
any  one  either  creates  truly,  or  brings  forth  abortions 
and  monstrosities,  according  as  the  mind  is  well  stored 
with  sound  knowledge  and  has  true  concepts,  or  as  it  is 
inadequately  furnished  with  knowledge  and  has  erroneous 
concepts — according,  in  fact,  as  the  individual  is  or  is 
not  in  harmony  with  nature. 

In  order  to  the  full  function  of  imagination,  in  order, 
that  is,  that  it  may  combine  into  new  form,  according  to 
higher  laws,  the  ideas  and  feelings  which  have  been  fur- 
nished by  the  senses  and  the  bodily  organs — it  is  plainly 
indispensable  that  the  several  pre-necessary  mental  opera- 

*  "  Yet  nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 

But  nature  makes  that  mean  ;  so,  over  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  nature,  is  an  art 
That  nature  makes 


This  is  an  art 

Which  does  mend  nature — change,  rather  :  but 
The  art  itself  is  nature."—  Winter's  Tale. 


526  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

tions  should  be  performed  correctly:  it  is  essential,  in  fact, 
that  there  should  be,  in  the  first  place,  accurate  perception 
— that  the  mind  or  brain  should  respond  truly  and  ade- 
quately to  impressions ;  secondly,  that  there  should  be 
accurate  memory,  the  mind  retaining  or  registering  accu- 
rately what  has  been  received  ;  thirdly,  that  there  should 
be  good  recollection,  the  mind  being  able  to  reproduce  and 
use  with  ease  and  completeness  what  it  possesses ;  and 
that,  lastly,  the  mind  or  brain  should  be  endowed  with 
fttel  productive  power  by  which  it  is  enabled  to  combine 
and  create.  Though  a  person  may  be  capable  of  per- 
forming well  the  first  three  mental  operations,  if  he 
have  not  also  productive  power,  he  is  incapable  of  the 
highest  imagination ;  he  lacks  the  highest  function  of  mind. 
He  may  be  able  to  gather  material  together,  but  he  can- 
not truly  combine  it,  according  to  mental  laws,  into  a  true 
creative  product ;  for  production  is  not  merely  a  binding 
together  of  material,  but  an  organic  combining  and  de- 
velopment of  it  As  Wieland  aptly  remarked,  the  eyes  of 
Juno,  with  the  nose  of  Apollo,  the  brow  of  Minerva,  and 
the  smile  of  Venus,  would  form  an  absurdity,  not  a 
masterpiece  of  fancy ;  it  would  be  like  a  mixing  together 
of  several  chemical  elements  that  would  not  combine, 
not  a  combination  of  them  into  a  new  product  having 
properties  unlike  those  of  its  constituents. 

When  we  look  back  through  the  lower  forms  of 
mind  we  find  that  this  productive  or  plastic  power  in- 
creases with  the  increase  of  mind.  So  far  as  we  can 
judge,  the  imagination  of  animals  is  mainly,  if  not  en- 
tirely, reproductive ;  when  they  dream,  as  dogs  evidently 
sometimes  do,  it  is  presumably  memory  rather  than 
imagination  which  is  at  work.  The  imagination  of  savages 
is  certainly  much  more  limited  to  reproduction  than  that 
of  highly  civilized  persons ;  it  is  occupied  with  the  ideas 
of  perception,  or  with  such  incongruous  and  often  gro- 
tesque mixing  together  of  ideas  as  may  serve  for  an 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  527 

explanation  of  natural  phenomena  that  are  not  understood. 
The  imagination  of  young  children  is  very  much  like  that 
of  savages,  and  they  are  pleased  and  satisfied  with  the 
same  kind  of  fabulous  explanations  of  phenomena.  In 
dreaming,  the  imagination  commonly  runs  riot,  wildly 
mixing  together  incongruous  ideas  into  the  most  absurd 
forms,  but  still  evincing  its  wonderful  shaping  power  in 
the  vivid  dramas  which  it  represents.  In  the  man  of 
genius,  whose  mind  is  in  intimate  sympathy  with  the  laws 
of  nature  and  strong  with  their  strength,  imagination 
shapes  truly,  for  it  is  nature  working  in  him  ;  it  is  the 
highest  display  of  organic  evolution,  and,  like  nature, 
works  unconsciously.  (a) 

Although  there  is  something  more  in  imagination  than 
perception  and  memory,  which  are  its  necessary  founda- 
tions, it  may  be  remarked  that  many  times  much  of  what 
we  call  memory  is  really  imagination.  When  we  think 
to  recall  the  actual,  the  concrete,  it  is  often  the  ideal,  the 
general,  that  we  reproduce  ;  and  when  we  believe  that  we 
are  remembering,  we  are  often  wwremembering,  being 
swayed  by  the  feelings  of  the  moment  which  colour  our 
remembrance,  and  unable  to  reproduce  the  feelings  of  the 
past  under  which  we  had  the  actual  experience.  How 
much  of  perception  too  is  actually  imagination  !  The 
past  perception  unavoidably  mingles  in  the  present  act, 
prevents  us  often  from  discriminating  minute  differences 
which  exist,  and  thus  causes  us  to  perceive  wrongly  or 
observe  incorrectly.  What  shall  be  admitted  as  a.  fact  in 
scientific  observation  depends  entirely  upon  the  ob- 
server's previous  knowledge  and  training.  So  strong  is 
the  disposition  to  assimilate  a  previous  observation  with 
a  past  perception,  to  blend  together  the  like  in  two 
ideas,  that  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  overlook 
those  special  differences  which  demand  a  discrimina- 
tion or  organic  differentiation  ;  there  is,  indeed,  as  great 
a  danger  of  hasty  generalization  in  perception  as  there  is 


$28  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND,  [CHAP. 

in  reasoning.  That  which  in  a  present  perception  is  the 
like  of  something  in  a  former  perception  easily  stimulates 
the  same  nervous  current,  which  accordingly  occupies 
attention,  to  the  neglect  or  overlooking  of  that  in  which 
the  perceptions  are  unlike ;  whence  it  frequently  happens 
that  a  misperception  occurs,  and  that  facts  not  the  same 
are  declared  to  be  the  same.  It  is  always  a  pleasure 
when  a  new  experience  blends  with  an  old  one  ;  if  a  new 
observation  will  not  easily  assimilate  with  existing  ideas, 
there  is  a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  and  of  positive  dis- 
comfort, and  one  is  apt  to  pass  the  unwelcome  fact  by. 
But  if  a  proper  mental  training  prevents  such  neglect,  the 
fact  is  deliberately  appropriated  or  registered  as  a  special 
fact,  although  small  satisfaction  is  felt  in  the  martyrdom 
of  thus  registering  it,  isolated  as  it  appears  ;  after  a  while, 
however,  other  observations  cluster  about  it,  some 
blending  with  it,  others  connecting  it  with  ideas  to  which 
it  seemed  entirely  unrelated,  until  this  pariah  of  the  mind 
is  found  perhaps  to  bridge  over  a  gap  in  knowledge,  and 
organically  to  unite  distant  ideas.  It  may  be  supposed, 
indeed,  that  while  this  is  going  on  its  nervous- substratum 
is  forming  its  organic  connections  in  the  plexuses  of  the 
convolutions.  The  habit  of  observing  accurately,  of 
carefully  noting  minute  differences,  and  of  scrupulously 
registering  them  so  as  to  effect  an  exact  internal  corre- 
spondence with  external  specialities,  is  indispensable  to 
the  true  cultivation  of  mind. 

When  a  past  perception  of  a  fact  vitiates  a  present  per- 
ception, it  is  hardly  correct  to  ascribe  the  erroneous  per- 
ception to  imagination  ;  it  is  really  a  false  perception 
arising  from  imperfect  observation  and  hasty  generaliza- 
tion j  but  when  the  fact  that  has  been  erroneously  or  im- 
perfectly observed  is  used  in  inference  to  warrant  an  anti- 
cipation or  prediction,  then  certainly  imagination  is  at 
work,  and  future  observations  are  likely  to  be  falsified  by 
the  erroneous  anticipation  or  theory  of  what  will  be  seen. 


U.  j  MEMOR  Y  AND  IMA  GIN  A  T10N.  529 

That  is  what  we  mean  to  imply  when  we  say  of  an  un- 
trustworthy scientific  observer  that  he  resorts  to  his 
imagination  for  his  facts  ;  his  present  observation  is  viti- 
ated by  the  perverting  influence  of  an  incorrect  theory 
based  upon  imperfectly  observed  facts.  Accurate  per- 
ception and  exact  memory  are  the  fundamental  basis  of 
sound  reasoning  and  imagination.  As  we  perceive  more 
accurately,  so  shall  we  remember  more  correctly,  judge 
more  soundly,  and  imagine  more  truly.  The  habit  of 
hasty  and  inexact  observation,  the  unwarranted  blending 
of  residua  that  are  not  truly  like,  is  necessarily  the  founda- 
tion of  a  habit  of  remembering  wrongly  ;  and  the  habit  of 
remembering  wrongly  is  of  necessity  the  cause  of  incor- 
rect judgment  and  of  erroneous  imagination  :  exact  in- 
ternal correspondence  and  external  relations  being  the 
basis  of  an  imagination  true  to  nature, — in  other  words, 
of  a  true  organic  mental  development.  For  these  reasons, 
"  the  whole  powers  of  the  soul  may,"  as  Hartley  observes, 
"be  referred  to  the  memory,  when  taken  in  a  large  sense. 
Hence,  though  some  persons  may  have  strong  memories 
and  weak  .judgments,  yet  no  man  can  have  a  strong 
judgment  with  a  weak  original  power  of  retaining  and 
remembering." 

If  the  imagination  have  not  a  sound  basis  in  habits  of 
accurate  observation,  it  degenerates  into  fancy ;  a  term 
which,  though  originally  it  was  considered  to  mean  the 
same  thing  as  imagination,  is  now  used  to  denote  a  well- 
founded  difference.*  Fancy  represents  the  productive 
or  creative  power  of  imagination  working  without  that 
due  restraint  of  law  which  is  imposed  upon  its  operation 
by  habits  of  accurate  observation,  and  without  that 
proper  and  sufficient  material  of  facrs  which  such  obser- 

*  Imago,  image,  imagination,  were  once  synonymous  with 
^airrarr/^a,  phantasm,  fancy  ;  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  the  latter 
have  now  received  their  special  meanings, phantasm  being  an  illusion 
or  hallucination,  and  fancy  a  riotous  imagination. 


530  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

ration  furnishes ;  consequently  it  wildly  or  whimsically 
yokes  together  by  means  of  accidental  coincidences 
things  that  have  no  essential  relations  to  one  another. 
The  productive  power  of  imagination  can  create  form, 
but  cannot  create  the  material  with  which  it  must  work ; 
for  that  it  must  go  to  nature  ;  nor  will  it  create  true  forms 
unless  it  be  itself  informed  by  nature.  Yellow  and  blue 
mixed  together  produce  green  ;  "  but  he  who  has  never 
seen  this  colour,"  says  Feuchtersleben,  "  can  never  create 
it  in  his  fancy."  Thus,  in  regard  to  the  highest  mental 
function  as  in  regard  to  the  lowest,  we  perceive  that  man 
is  a  complex  medium,  through  which  impressions  are 
translated  into  action;  he  is  a  complex  and  intricate 
mechanism  of  so-called  reflex  function. 

As  organic  growth  and  development  take  place  in 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature,  and  yet  constitute  an 
advance  upon  them,  so  it  is  with  the  well-cultivated  or 
truly  developed  imagination,  which  brings  together 
images  from  different  regions  of  nature,  yokes  them 
together  by  means  of  their  occult  but  essential  relations, 
and,  thus  making  the  whole  one  image,  gives  a  unity  to 
variety — displays  the  one  in  the  many:  there  is  an 
obedient  recognition  of  nature,  and  there  is  a  develop- 
mental advance  upon  it  This  esemplastic  faculty,  as 
Coleridge,  following  Schelling,  named  it,  has  been  fanci- 
fully supposed  to  be  indicated  by  the  German  word  for 
imagination,  namely,  Einbildung>  or  the  one-making 
faculty*  Its  highest  working  in  our  great  poets  and 
philosophers  really  affords  us  an  example  of  creation 
going  steadily  on  as  a  natural  process ;  and  creative  or 
productive  activity  is  assuredly  the  expression  of  the 
highest  mental  action  :  whosoever  has  such  capacity  has 
more  or  less  genius ;  whosoever  has  it  not  will  do  nothing 
original,  though  he  work  never  so  hard.  What  an  amount 

*  More  correctly  Ein  for  en  (in),  and  Bildung  (formation,) — in- 
ternal image,  i.e.  imagination. 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  531 

has  been  unwisely  Avritten  by  the  sedulous  followers  of  a 
so-called  inductive  philosophy  in  disparagement  of  imagi- 
nation and  in  favour  of  simple  observation  1  "  Men 
should  consider,"  says  Bacon,  "  the  story  of  the  woman 
in  ALsop,  who  expected  that  with  a  double  measure  of 
barley  her  hen  would  lay  two  eggs  a  day ;  whereas  the 
hen  grew  fat  and  laid  none."  It  were  as  wise  in  a  man 
to  load  his  stomach  with  food  which  it  cannot  digest,  as 
to  load  his  mind  with  facts  which  it  cannot  digest  and 
assimilate.  It  is  in  the  great  capacity  which  it  has  of 
assimilating  material  from  every  quarter,  and  of  develop- 
ing in  proportion,  that  the  superiority  of  genius  consists  ; 
and  it  is  in  the  excellence  of  its  creative  imagination, 
whether  poetic,  artistic,  philosophic,  or  scientific,  that  its 
superior  energy  is  exhibited. 

Because  the  least  things  and  the  greatest  in  Nature 
are  indissolubly  bound  together  as  equally  essential 
parts  of  the  mysterious  but  harmonious  whole,  therefore 
the  intuition  into  one  pure  circle  of  her  works  by  the 
high  and  subtile  intellect  of  the  genius  contains  implicitly 
much  more  than  can  be  explicitly  displayed  in  it ;  and 
therefore  it  comes  to  pass  at  times  that,  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  a  new  order  of  events  by  an  intellect  which  is  in 
genial  sympathy  with  nature,  the  law  of  them  explicitly 
declares  itself  as  by  a  flash  of  intuition,  after  compara- 
tively few  observations.  The  imagination  successfully 
anticipates  the  slow  results  of  patient  and  systematic 
research,  flooding  the  darkness  with  the  light  of  a  true 
interpretation,  and  thus  illuminating  the  obscure  relations 
and  intricate  connections.  Therein  a  well-endowed  and 
well  cultivated  mind  manifests  its  unconscious  harmony 
with  nature.  The  brightest  flashes  of  genius  come  un- 
consciously and  without  effort :  growth  is  not  a  voluntary 
act,  although  the  gathering  of  food  is. 

Certainly  the  intuition  of  truth  can  never  be  the  rule 
amongst  men,  inasmuch  as  the  genius  capable  of  this 


532  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

rapid  and  brilliant  intuition,  so  far  from  being  common, 
is  a  most  rare  exception  amongst  them.  And  the  result, 
however  brilliantly  acquired,  can  never  be  safely  accepted 
as  lasting,  until  it  has  been  further  subjected  to  the  tests 
of  observation,  experiment,  and  logical  reasoning, — until 
it  has  undergone  verification.  The  man  of  genius  who 
has  revealed  a  great  truth  may  perhaps,  on  some  other 
occasion,  promulgate  an  equally  great  error.  Not,  how- 
ever, is  this  likely  to  happen  often :  for  a  well-trained 
intellect  is  truly  a  most  delicate,  potent,  and  finished  in- 
strument, which  has  been  fashioned  with  great  pains  and 
skill,  and  which,  when  applied  to  the  investigation  of  any 
department  of  nature,  places  its  possessor  at  an  enormous 
advantage  over  one  who  is  not  so  gifted ;  not  otherwise 
than  as  one  who  uses  a  microscope  or  a  telescope  has 
vast  advantages  over  him  who  uses  his  naked  eye  only. 
Happily  his  errors,  if  they  are  made,  are  indirectly  most 
useful ;  for  the  experiments  and  observations  provoked 
and  directed  by  them,  and  prosecuted  for  the  purpose  of 
displaying  their  instability,  often  lead  to  valuable  dis- 
coveries. Mischief  is  undoubtedly  wrought  by  the  rash 
promulgation  of  ill-grounded  theories  on  the  part  of  those 
who  have  neither  superior  original  capacity,  nor  a  mind 
well  stored  with  the  results  of  observation,  nor  an 
imagination  properly  cultivated.  It  is  the  ignorant  only, 
however,  whom  such  persons  deceive  :  those  who  possess 
an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  subject  can  usually  detect 
in  the  unwarranted  theory  the  exact  amount  of  know- 
ledge which  its  author  has  had,  and  the  character  of  the 
defect  in  the  reasoning  by  which  it  is  supported. 

Those  who  take  a  philosophical  view  of  things,  and  look 
upon  the  progress  of  human  knowledge  as  a  development 
which  is  going  on  continuously  through  the  ages,  will  find 
it  conformable  to  their  experience  of  every  other  form  of 
vital  growth  that  there  should  be,  coincidently  with 
advance,  a  retrograde  metamorphosis,  degeneration,  or 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  533 

corruption  of  that  which  is  not  fitted  for  assimilation,  and 
which  is  ultimately  rejected ;  for  as  the  body  dies  daily 
as  the  condition  of  its  life,  so  false  theories  and  corrupt 
doctrines  are  conditions  of  the  progress  of  knowledge. 
In  the  growth  and  development  of  the  body  there  is  a 
correlative  degeneration  or  retrograde  metamorphosis  of 
organic  element  going  on — a  daily  death  in  strict  relation 
with  the  activity  of  life  ;  so  likewise  in  the  organic  growth 
of  thought  through  the  ages,  there  is  a  corresponding 
decay  or  corruption  of  erroneous  doctrines — a  death  of 
the  false  in  strict  relation  with  the  growth  of  the  true ; 
thus  healthy  energy  throws  off  effete  matter,  which,  in  the 
very  act  of  undergoing  decay,  gives  up  force  that  is  avail- 
able for  the  development  of  the  higher  doctrine  which 
supersedes  it.  That  men  should  evince  a  distrust  of 
hasty  generalization,  and  an  unwillingness  to  accept  new 
doctrines,  is  a  healthy  manifestation  of  the  self-conserva- 
tive instinct  of  their  nature ;  for  this  aversion  from  new 
things  prevents  the  human  mind  from  being  led  astray  by 
every  vain  and  windy  doctrine,  opens  the  way  for  criticism 
and  verification,  and  thus  in  the  end  promotes  a  sound 
development.  Not  in  the  individual,  however,  where  so 
much  active  change  takes  place  in  so  short  a  time,  will 
the  regular  corruption  and  decay  of  false  doctrines  be 
clearly  perceived,  but  in  the  historical  development  of 
the  race,  where  the  gradual  evolution  of  mind  may  be 
observed  and  traced  in  its  successive  stages. 

Thus  much  concerning  memory  and  imagination,  the 
examination  of  which  reveals,  better  perhaps  than  the 
analysis  of  any  other  of  the  so-called  mental  faculties, 
the  complex  organization  which  mind  really  is.  It  re- 
mains only  to  add,  that  the  manifold  disorders  to  which 
memory  is  liable  illustrate  in  the  most  complete  manner 
its  organic  nature.  Its  disorders  are  numberless  in 
degree  and  variety  ;  for  not  only  every  degree  of  dulness, 
but  every  variety  of  partial  loss,  as  of  syllables  in  a 
24 


534  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

particular  word,  of  certain  words,  places,  names,  is  met 
with  in  particular  cases.  So  various  and  numerous  are 
its  possible  defects,  that  it  has  not  yet  been  practicable  to 
reduce  them  to  any  system,  although  it  is  probable  that 
a  careful  classification  of  them  would  be  a  most  useful 
contribution  to  the  construction  of  a  mental  science. 
All  that  we  can  at  present  conclude  from  them  is,  first, 
that  memory  is  an  organized  product ;  and,  secondly, 
that  it  is  an  organization  extending  widely  through  the 
cortical  layers  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  It  is  easy 
(o  observe  that  differences  exist  in  different  persons  in 
the  character  of  the  organic  function  which  ministers  to 
memory  :  one  man,  for  example,  has  a  good  memory  for 
particular  facts,  but  is  no  way  remarkable  for  reasoning 
power,  or  is  even  singularly  deficient  therein — the  regis- 
tration of  the  concrete  impressions  taking  place  with 
great  ease  and  completeness,  but  the  further  digestion  of 
the  residua  not  being  accomplished  ;  another,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  no  memory  for  particular  isolated  facts, 
— they  must  have  some  relation  to  ideas  already  appro- 
priated, or  must  fall  under  some  principle,  if  he  is  to 
recollect  them ;  in  this  case  the  digestion  of  residua  is 
well  effected,  so  that  there  exists  a  great  power  of  gene- 
ralization. The  latter  is  the  memory  of  intellect;  the 
former,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  is  not  unfrequently 
the  memory  of  idiots. 

It  is  well-known  that  memory  is  greatly  affected 
by  bodily  states :  it  differs  much  at  different  times ; 
and  in  a  state  of  complete  bodily  exhaustion  from 
temporary  causes  it  may  sometimes  become  a  com- 
plete blank  for  a  time,  being  restored  to  its  accus- 
tomed function  with  the  restoration  of  bodily  vigour. 
These  occasional  variations  in  its  function  are  of  no 
great  moment ;  they  merely  prove  that  memory,  like  any 
other  bodily  function,  is  well  and  easily,  or  ill  and  pain- 
fully, performed  according  to  the  state  of  the  general 


ix.  ]  MEMOR  Y  AND  IMA  Gf.WA  TION.  535 

health.  But  it  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  some  flaw 
in  the  memory,  some  breach  in  its  exquisite  organization, 
is  one  of  the  first  indications  of  a  disorder  or  degenera- 
tion of  the  nerve  element  of  the  cortical  layers.  Its 
slight,  early  affections  are  very  apt  to  be  overlooked, 
forasmuch  as  they  do  not  reveal  themselves  in  a  con- 
scious inability  to  remember  something,  but  i/i  an  un- 
conscious deterioration  of  the  highest  mental  functions, 
and  especially  of  the  moral  sense.  The  most  delicately 
organized  residua,  representing  the  highest  acquisitions 
of  organic  evolution,  are  here  the  first  to  attest  by  their 
sufferings  any  interference  with  the  integrity  of  nerve- 
element,  just  as  disorders  of  the  most  delicate  and 
complex  associated  movements  of  the  spinal  cord  are 
the  first  to  declare  the  commencing  degeneration  of  its 
centres.  There  is  a  decomposition  or  undoing  of  that 
which  constitutes  the  latest  and  highest  mental  develop- 
ment— an  analysis  of  it,  so  to  speak  ;  disease  rudely 
unravelling  that  which  has  been  intricately  and  delicately 
woven  into  a  complex  woof  of  associated  nervous 
plexuses.  Long  before  there  is  any  palpable  loss  of 
memory  in  insanity,  even  before  an  individual  is  re- 
cognised to  be  becoming  insane,  there  is  a  derangement 
of  his  highest  reasoning  and  of  his  moral  qualities ;  his 
character  is  seen  to  be  more  or  less  altered,  though  what 
the  exact  change  is  cannot  perhaps  be  described  in 
words ;  as  it  is  said,  "  he  is  not  himself."  If  the  degene- 
ration of  nerve  element  proceeds  we  witness  successively 
every  stage  of  declension  in  the  disorder  of  the  complex 
organization  of  the  memory  ;  namely,  manifest  perversion 
of  the  higher  social  feelings,  next  greater  or  less  destruc- 
tion of  the  organic  connexions  of  ideas,  whence  follows 
incoherence  of  thought,  and,  finally,  general  forgetfulness, 
declining  into  complete  abolition  of  memory. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  it  is  that  the  old 
man  sometimes  has  a  tenacious  memory  of  the  past,  and 


536  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

reasons  tolerably  correctly  with  regard  to  it,  when  he 
cannot  duly  appropriate  and  rightly  estimate  the  present 
The  brain,  like  every  other  organ  of  the  body,  suffers  a 
diminution  of  power  of  activity  with  the  advance  of 
age  ;  it  is  less  supple,  its  ideas,  like  the  movements  which 
it  dictates,  being  performed  slowly  and  stiffly  ;  it  reacts 
to  impressions  with  less  and  less  vigour  and  vivacity,  and 
there  is  less  and  less  capacity  to  assimilate  the  influence 
of  them,  so  that  there  ensue  dulness  of  perception  and 
an  incorrect  appreciation  of  events.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, the  past  is  a  possession  which  is  incorporated  in 
the  organic  nature  of  the  brain,  and  may  be  sufficiently 
remembered,  though  perhaps  with  less  vivacity  than 
formerly,  when  the  latest  impressions  have  been  ob- 
literated by  "  decay's  effacing  finger."  It  is  easy,  again, 
to  perceive  how  it  is  that  children,  like  animals,  live 
almost  entirely  in  the  present ;  they  have  no  store  of 
ideas  organized  in  the  mind  which  can  be  called  into 
activity  to  influence  the  present  idea,  and  they  react 
directly  to  the  impressions  made  upon  them.  The  best 
possible  evidence  of  the  gradual  process  of  mental  or- 
ganization is  indeed  afforded  by  the  mental  phenomena 
of  young  children ;  for,  the  residua  of  impressions  not 
being  completely  organized,  their  memory  is  fallacious, 
and,  a  firm  organic  association  between  ideas  not  being 
established,  their  discourse  is  incoherent. 

The  old  man  and  the  child  both  fail  in  judgment :  the 
former,  because  he  has  forgotten  more  or  less  of  the  past, 
and  has  lost  the  standard  by  which  to  measure  the  present 
perception,  or  because  he  cannot  perform  accurately  the 
present  perception,  and  measures  it  entirely  by  the  past ; 
the  latter,  because  it  has  not  yet  any  past.  By  the  neces- 
sity of  the  case  almost,  an  old  man  becomes  conservative 
and  the  laudator  temporis  acti ;  for  the  evolution  of 
events  goes  on  when  his  nature  has  ceased  to  assimilate 
and  develop ;  he  has  accordingly  no  sympathy  with  them, 


IX.]  MEMOR  Y  AND  IMA  GIN  A  TION,  537 

shrinks  from  contact  with  them,  and  querulously  brands 
as  revolutionary  what  is  truly  evolutionary.  It  were 
a  grievous  thing  if  old  men  did  not  die ;  for  in  that 
sad  case  the  world's  movement  onwards  to  where  it  is 
going  would  be  very  sluggish,  if  it  were  not  actually 
arrested.  How  different  with  the  youth  !  The  curtain 
of  life  rises,  its  illusions  fascinate  him,  and  he  is  en- 
chanted with  all  he  sees ;  his  nature  expands  trustfully 
and  joyfully,  and  though  he  may  often  mistake  fleeting 
shows  for  lasting  truths,  and  come  to  no  little  sorrow 
thereby,  yet  he  assimilates,  grows,  and  develops.  Nature 
Jures  him  into  young  enthusiasm  of  faith  and  work,  and 
by  the  time  he  finds  her  out  in  age  dispenses  with 
him. 

I^astly,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  bear  in  mind,  in  regard 
to  the  organic  nature  of  memory,  that  we  cannot  well 
remember  pain.  It  is  certainly  possible  to  remember  that 
we  have  suffered  a  particular  pain ;  but  vividly  to  recall 
the  pain,  as  we  can  recall  a  definite  idea,  is  not  possible. 
And  why  ?  Because  the  idea  is  an  organized  product 
which  abides,  while  the  disorganization  or  disturbance  of 
nerve  element  which  pain  implies  passes  away  with  the 
restoration  of  the  integrity  of  the  nerve  centre.  To  recall 
an  idea  is  to  reproduce  the  same  nervous  current  which 
was  experienced  on  the  first  occasion,  to  the  recurrence 
of  which  there  is  an  organic  aptitude.  To  recall  a  pain 
as  we  actually  felt  it  would  be  to  reproduce  the  condi- 
tions of  disorganization  which  accompanied  it ;  and  that 
we  cannot  do  by  an  effort  of  will.  For  the  same  reason, 
we  cannot  easily  or  adequately  recall  a  very  powerful 
emotion  in  which  the  idea  or  the  form  has  been  almost 
entirely  lost  in  the  commotion — where,  in  fact,  the  storm 
among  the  intimate  elements  has  been  so  great  as  to  be 
destructive  of  form :  Shakespeare's  words,  "  formless 
ruin  of  oblivion,"  admirably  expressing  the  state  of 
things.  When  we  do  strive  to  bring  to  mind  a  particular 


53»  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.  [CHAP. 

sensation  or  emotion,  it  is  by  vivid  representation  of  its 
cause,  and  consequent  secondary  excitation  of  it :  we 
remember  the  idea,  and  the  idea  thereupon  generates  the 
emotion  or  the  sensation  ;  though  seldom  in  so  intense  a 
degree  as  when  this  was  actually  experienced.  But  the 
sensation  of  pain  is  a  different  matter  from  the  sensation 
of  one  of  the  senses  ;  it  is  the  outcry  of  suffering  nerve 
element,  and  cannot  commonly  be  generated  by  an 
idea ;  it  is  not  the  result  of  organization,  but  the  token 
of  disorganization.  How,  then,  should  it  be  accurately 
remembered  ? 

NOTES. 

1  (.A  5*4)' — "The  truth  that  memory  comes  into  existence  when 
the  connections  among  psychical  states  cease  to  be  perfectly  auto- 
matic is  in  complete  harmony  with  the  obverse  truth,  illustrated  in 
all  our  experience,  that  as  fast  as  the  connections  of  psychical  states 
which  we  form  in  memory  become,  by  constant  repetition,  automatic, 
they  cease  to  be  part  of  memory.     We  do  not  speak  of  ourselves  as 
remembering  those  relations  which  become  organically,  or  almost 
organically,  registered  ;  we  remember  those  relations  only  of  which 
the  registration  is  not  yet  absolute.     No  one  remembers  that  the 
object  at  which  he  is  looking  has  an  opposite  side  ;  or  that  a  certain 
modification  of  the  visual  impression  implies  a  certain  distance  ;  or 
that  the  thing  which  he  sees  moving  about  is  a  living  animal.     It 
would  be  a  misuse  of  language  were  we  to  ask  another  whether  he 
remembers  that  the  sun  shines,  that  fire  burns,  that  iron  is  hard,  and 
that  ice  is  cold.  ....  And  similarly,  though,  when  a  child,  the 
reader's  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  successive  words  was  at  first 
a  memory  of  the  meanings  he  had  heard  given  to  them  ;  yet  now 
their  several  meanings  are  present  to  him  without  any  such  mental 
process  as  that  which  we  call  remembrance." — HERBERT  SPENCER, 
Principles  of  Psychology,  p.  551. 

2  (/•  S27)- — Jean  Paul  Richter,   in  one  of  his   Letters,   says  : 
"  The  dream  is  an  involuntary  art  of  poetry  :  and  it  shows  that  the 
poet  works  more  with  the  bodily  brain  than  another  man.     How  is 
it  that  no  one  has  wondered  that  in  the  detached  scenes  of  dreaming, 
he  puts  in  the  mouth  of  the  actors  the  most  appropriate  language, 
the  words  most  exactly  characteristic  of  their  nature  :  or  rather  that 


ix.]  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION.  539 

they  prompt  him,  not  he  them  ?  The  true  poet  even  is  in  writing 
only  the  listener,  not  the  language-teacher  of  his  characters.  .... 
Victor's  observation  that  the  opponent  of  his  dreams  often  put  before 
him  more  difficult  objections  than  a  real  bodily  one,  may  be  made 
of  the  dramatist,  who  can  in  no  manner  be  the  spokesman  of  his 
company  without  a  certain  inspiration,  though  he  is  at  the  same 
time  easily  the  writer  of  their  parts.  That  dream-forms  surprise  us 
with  answers  with  which  we  ourselves  have  inspired  them  is  natural  ; 
even  when  awake  every  idea  springs  forth  suddenly  like  a  spark  of 
fire,  though  we  attribute  it  to  our  attention  ;  but  in  dreams  we  lack 
the  consciousness  of  attention,  and  we  must  thus  ascribe  the  idea 
to  the  figure  before  us,  to  which  also  we  ascribe  the  attention  " 
Again: — "Das  Machtigste  in  Dichter,  welches  seinen  Werken 
die  gute  und  die  bdse  Scele  einblaset,  ist  gerade  das  Unbewusste." 
— Aesthtttk. 

Carlyle,  whose  writings  exhibit  in  a  marked  degree  the  influence 
of  Jean  Paul  and  Goethe,  says  of  Shakespeare: — "Shakespeare  is 
what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect ;  there  is  more  virtue  in  it  than 
he  is  himself  aware  of.  His  dramas  are  products  of  Nature,  deep 
as  Nature  herself.  It  is  Nature's  highest  regard  to  a  true,  simple, 
great  soul,  that  he  gets  thus  to  be  a..patt  of  lurself.  Such  a  man's 
works,  whatever  he  with  utmost  conscious  exertion  and  forethought 
shall  accomplish,  grow  up  withal  wwconsciously  from  the  unknown 
deep  in  him,  as  the  oak-tree  grows  from  the  earth's  bosom,  as  the 
mountains  and  waters  shape  themselves.'"' 

Dr.  Brown  (Philosophy  of  the  Mind,  p.  200),  when  enumerating 
what  he  calls  the  Secondary  Laws  of  Suggestion,  lays  much  stress 
on  constitutional  differences  in  individuals — the  differences  of  Genius, 
Temper,  or  Disposition.  The  tendencies  in  some  minds  are  wholly 
to  suggestions  of  proximity ;  in  other  minds  there  is  a  powerful 
tendency  to  suggestions  of  analogy.  It  is  in  this  latter  tendency  to 
the  new  and  copious  suggestions  of  analogy  that  the  distinction  of 
genius  appears  to  consist ;  a  mind  in  which  it  exists  is  necessarily 
inventive ;  "  ior  all  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  invention,  having 
a  relation  to  something  old,  but  a  relation  to  that  which  was  never 
before  suspected  or  practically  applied,  is  the  suggestion  of  analogy." 
There  would  be  nothing  new  if  objects  were  to  suggest  only,  accord- 
ing to  proximity,  the  very  objects  that  had  co-existed  with  them  ; 
but  there  is  a  perpetual  novelty  of  combination,  when  the  images 
that  arise  after  each  other,  by  that  shadowy  species  of  resemblance 
which  we  are  considering,  are  such  as  never  existed  before  together  or 
in  immediate  succession.  Hence  the  rich  figurative  language  of 
poetry— the  expressions  of  resemblances  that  have  arisen  silently 


540  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MIND.        [CHAP.  lx. 

and  spontaneously  in  the  mind  ;  hence  the  discoveries  and  inventions 
of  science,  &c.  He  goes  on,  too,  to  point  out  that  this  novelty  of 
combination  in  imagination  cannot  depend  upon  the  will.  It  is 
absurd,  he  says,  to  suppose  that  we  can  will  directly  any  conception, 
since,  if  we  know  what  we  will,  conception  must  be  already  a  pait 
of  consciousness. 

"Hence,  in  proportion  as  the  memory  is  enriched  and  provided 
with  materials,  in  the  same  proportion  the  rational  mind,  if  backed 
by  a  happy  genius,  will  be  able  skilfully,  felicitously,  and  approxi- 
mately and  agreeably  to  the  truth,  to  distribute  its  analysis  into 
series,  to  adjust  and  conclude  them,  of  many  analytic  conclusions 
again  to  form  new  analyses,  and  in  the  end  to  evolve  its  ultimate 
analyses." — SWEDENBORG'S  Animal  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.  p.  348. 

In  a  note  he  adds — "This  is  corroborated  by  the  common  opinion, 
that  the  knowledge  and  intelligence  of  an  individual  are  in  propor- 
tion to  the  furniture  of  his  memory.  But  it  does  not  follow  from 
this,  that  a  powerful  memory  is  always  accompanied  with  ability,  or 
by  an  understanding  of  equal  grasp.  For  the  faculty  of  reducing 
the  contents  of  memory  to  order  is  a  fresh  intellectual  requisite.  An 
edifice  is  not  built  simply  by  the  accumulation  of  implements,  bricks, 
tiles,  and  the  materials.  These  and  skill  must  be  tasked  to  put  all 
things  together  in  their  places." 


INDEX. 


ABRRCROMMK,  Dr.(  38,  93,312,  £93. 

Absolute,  the,  TO. 

Abstraction,    the    moaning    of,    275  ; 

made  into  entity,  83,  276,  283,  440, 

436. 

Acid,  cerebrinic,  78. 
Actuation,  463,  466. 
Affections  of  mind,  348. 
Alcmseon,  120. 

Amphibia,  cerebral  hemispheres  of,  97 
Amphioxus,  the,  92. 
Analysis,  introspective,  60,  61. 
Anaximander,  3. 
Anaesthesia,  316. 

Annelida,  nervous  system  of,  165. 
Anthropomorphism,  4. 
Animals,  limited  ideas  of,   273,  275  ; 

imagination  of,  526. 
Antithesis,  the  principle  of,  384. 
Ape,  brain  of,  103,  261 ;  the  attention 

of  the,  311. 
Aphasia,  475  ;  morbid  conditions   of, 

477,  478 ;  condition  of  intelligence 

in,  479. 

Appetites,  354. 
Apoplexy,  200,  209. 
Arc,  the  sensorial,  98  ;  the  ideational, 

98. 

Archencephala,  the,  107. 
Aristotle,  5,  7,  63. 
Assimilation,  237. 
Attention,  effect  of,  upon  sensibility, 

398.   313 1   physical    basis  of,   308 ; 

nature  of,  310 — 321,  490;  voluntary 

and  involuntary,  312;  physical  con- 
ditions of,  316. 
Ante  mat  ism,  238  :  remarkable  cane  of, 

342 ;  and  memory,  521. 


B. 

BABOON,  brain  of  the  Chacma,  116. 
Bacon,  Francis,  6,  7,  15,  19,  23,  49,  50, 

55.  57.  59.  61,  69,  70,  149,  183,  501, 

356.  383.  4°7,  433- 
Bacon,  Roger,  7. 


Fun,  Professor  A.,  definition  of  mind, 
is6, 133  ;  on  the  germ  of  locomotive 
harmony,  153;  on  spontaneous 
energy,  170. 

Beaufort,  Sir  F.,  on  the  feelings  dur- 
ing drowning,  72. 

Bees,  the  nervous  centres  of,  165  :  in- 
telligence of,  240 ;  stupidity  of,  328. 

Belief,  the  nature  of,  413,  441  ;  manner 
of  reform  of,  446. 

Bell,  Sir  Charles,  on  the  infant's 
smile,  153,  473  ;  on  the  infant's  ap- 
prehension of  falling.  469 ;  on  the 
muscular  sense,  487,  493,  506. 

Beneke,  on  residua,  20 ;  on  uncon- 
scious mental  function,  74  ;  on  con- 
ceptions, 277. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  on  visual  language, 
312,  23$,  258 ;  on  the  non-existence 
of  matter,  225. 

Bert.on  grafting  animal  r tructur*s,i47. 

Bichat,  on  the  seat  of  the  passions,  37, 
389. 

Biography,  import  of,  13;  the  study 
of.  52. 

Birds,  cerebral  hemispheres  of,  07 : 
the  intelligence  of,  99 ;  the  emo 
tions  of,  99. 

Blainville,  on  the  effects  of  environ 
ment  on  the  organism,  132. 

Blake,  William,  visions  of,  293. 

Blindness,  313. 

Blushing.  317. 

Bone,  transplantation  of,  447. 

Bongos,  the  superstition  of,  a. 

Bonnet,  on  the  nature  of  ideas,  269. 

Bosjesman,  brain  of,  102,  261  ;  gesture- 
language  of,  501. 

Braid,  on  hypnotism,  388,  479. 

Brain,  organic  sympathies  of,  35 ; 
relations  of,  40 ;  waste  and  repair  or, 
40 ;  education  of,  83  ;  development 
of,  102 ;  weight  of,  103  ;  the  quality 
of,  104 ;  the  foetal,  106 ;  the  structure 
of  convolutions  of,  na— 118;  reflex 
function  of,  iSi. 

Bridgman,  Laura,  the  case  of,  480, 
507  ;  the  account  of  method  of  in- 
struction of,  507—511. 


542 


INDEX. 


Broca  on  the  seat  of  articulate  lan- 
guage, 263. 

Brown,  Dr.  T.,  on  a  physioloiry  of 
mind,  77 ;  on  co-existence  of  con- 
scious states,  304 ;  on  imagination, 

539- 

Browne,  SirT.,  107;  on  the  music  of 
the  spheres,  408;  iranspreciation, 

Brown-Se'quard,  on  the  production  of 
rigor  mortis,  171  ;  on  the  production 
of  epilepsy,  178  ;  on  reflex  delirium, 
253. 

Drunton,  Dr.  Lauder,  on  chloroform 
narcosis,  208. 

Burke,  on  the  mental  effects  of 
mimicking  looks  and  gestures,  473. 

Burrows,  Dr.,  a  case  of  rtllex  dtl.rium, 
*54- 

Burton,  R.  F.,  339. 


CABAMS,  on  the  secretion  of  thought, 
77 ;  on  the  transmission  of  organic 
habits,  219 ;  on  the  expression  of 
feelings,  474. 

Campanella,  the  physiognomist,  473. 

Causes,  final,  146 — 149,  156,  183,  432. 

Cerebrin,  78. 

Charming,  Rev.  Dr.,  on  change  of 
character,  448. 

Character,  336 ;  a  change  of,  362, 447 ; 
the  constancy  of,  370 ;  transforma- 
tion, 372  ;  its  relation  to  will,  445. 

Chloroform,  action  of,  208. 

Christianity,  the  moral  law  of,  404. 

Clarke,  Dr.  Lockhart,  on  the  struc- 
ture of  the  cerebral  convolutions, 
xia;  on  the  nature  of  volition,  427. 

Ccensesthesis,  the,  359,  374. 

Coleridge,  25,  82,  no,  530. 

Colloids,  87. 

Colour,  perception  of,  234. 

Commonwealth,  the  physiological,  37. 

Compensation,  400. 

Comte,  Auguste,  on  the  social  unit, 
53  ;  on  the  received  psychology,  70 ; 
on  the  relation  of  organism  to  en- 
vironment, 132 ;  on  the  cerebral 
functions,  262  ;  on  heredity,  330; 
on  the  impulses  of  action,  358,  407  ; 
on  continuous  organic  sympathy, 
376 ;  on  egoism  and  altruism,  390 ; 
on  family  feeling,  399;  on  final 
causes,  432  ;  on  language,  505. 

Concept,  the,  273, 522  ;  its  mechanism, 
381. 

Confucius,  421.  ^ 

Consciousness,  interrogation  of,  x6 — 
42  ;  the  necessary  condition  of,  17  ; 
nature  and  limits  of,  45 ;  grades  of, 
95,  242  ;  relation  to  reflex  acts, 
138 — 146  ;  relation  to  sensori-motor 
acts,  197—205 ;  relation  to  mental 


function,  245  ;  states  of  abnormal, 
303 ;  co-existence  of  states  of,  304  ; 
its  relation  to  memory,  521. 

Convolutions,  the  cerebral,  101  ;  the 
structure  of,  112 — 118;  differentia- 
tion of,  124  ;  morbid  changes  in, 
124  ;  the  functions  of,  261 — 268. 

Convulsion,  co-ordinated,  485. 

Corpora  striata,  functions  of,  187. 

Criminals,  the  study  of,  53. 

Curare,  effects  of,  171, 

Custom,  effects  of,  220,393. 

Curier,  F. ,  on  the  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  acquired  instincts,  218. 


D. 

DARWIN,  Charles,  on  the  persistence 
of  instincts,  216;  on  attention,  311: 
on  the  acquirement  of  mental  capa- 
city by  gradation,  330 ;  on  the  ex- 
pression of  the  emotions,  380, 383 ;  on 
sexual  selection,  404. 

Darwin,  Dr.  Erasmus,  on  sensori-motor 
actions,  256  ;  on  ideo-motor  actions, 
288,  292 ;  on  the  performance  of 
ideas,  307,  341 ;  on  epilepsy  and 
somnambulism,  347 ;  on  memory,  512. 

Deliberation.  309, 

Delirium,  reflex,  253,  254. 

De  Quincey,  on  opium  dreams,  73. 

Descartes,  on  the  test  of  a  true  belief, 
1 8  ;  on  the  constant  activity  of  mind, 
29 ;  his  definition  of  mind,  38,  125  ; 
exaltation  of  consciousness,  47 ; 
automatic  actions  of  animals,  48 ; 
on  final  causes,  432. 

Design,  nature  of,  146 — 148,  155,  430. 

Desire,  353,  357,  390,  434. 

Development,  the  law  of  organic,   7, 


132.  '33.  33»'  4°5- 
Dickens,  Charles, 


293- 

Dionaea  muscipula,  140. 
Discernment,  237. 
Disease,  emotional  or  affective  features 

of,  375- 

Distance,  intuition  of,  201,  468. 
Doctrine,  degeneration  or  corruption 

of  false,  533. 
Dreaming,  319,  375,  498  ;  imagination 

in,  527. 
Dreams,  persistence  of  images  of,  292, 

297. 
Drowning,  the  feelings  during,  72. 


EDUCATION,  84. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  on  the  will,  422, 
459 

Effort,  the  consciousness  of,  424. 

Ego,  the  conception  of  the,  224  :  modi- 
fication of,  363,  372 ;  the  identity 
of  the,  449. 


INDEX. 


543 


Emerson,  Rnlph  W.,  553. 

Emotion,  348—  408  ;  relation  to  idea. 
348,  361  ;  influence  of  condition  of 
nerve  element  upon,  358;  evolution 
of,  366;  resolution  of.  367;  basis  of, 
in  the  organic  life,  371,  373  :  influ- 
ence of  disease  upon,  375 ;  influence 
of  stale  of  blood  upon,  378 ;  dis- 
charjfe  of.  379  I  expression  of,  379— 
388 ;  influence  of  bodily  attitude 

,  upon,  387  ;  disorder  of,  389  ;  egoistic 

•  and  altruistic,  390;  the  complexity 
°f»  391  •  relation  of,  to  will,  451  — 

Entity,  conversion  of  abstraction  into, 

83.  276,  283,  426. 
Environment,  organic   adaptation  to, 

88,  131,  133. 
Epilepsy,  the  artificial  production  of, 

178  ;  insanity  after,  251 ;  the  cerebral 

seat  of,  263. 

Eunuchs,  the  mental  character  of,  373. 
Evolution,  intellectu.il,  330 — 334. 
Expression,  the  art  of,  498. 


r. 


FACULTY,  imitative,  i6t. 
Fame,  the  vanity  of,  68. 
Fancy,  the,  529. 

Faraday,   on  the  formation  of  hypo- 
theses, 65. 
Feeling,  social,  364,399 ;  aesthetic,  365  ; 

philosophic,    365;     muscular,    376; 

tribal,  399;    egoistic  and  altruistic, 

393 ;  moral,  400 — 404. 
Ferrier,  Dr.  D.,  on  stimulation  of  the 

cerebral  convolutions,  265,  268. 
Keuchtersleben,  on  imagination,  530. 
Fishes,  cerebral   hemispheres  of,   97  ; 

appearance  of  ideas  in,  98. 
Flourens,  on  the  removal  of  cerebral 

hemispheres.  191,  207. 
Foetus,  the  brain  of,  106. 
Foster,  John,  on  change  of  character, 

362  ;  on  habit,  420. 
Foxes,  acquired  cunning  of,  218. 
Foxhunting,  barbarity  of,  100, 
Fritsch,   Dr.,   on  stimulation    of  the 

cerebral  convolutions,  265. 
Function,  simplest  reflex,  89,  161  ;  sen- 

sori-motor,  94;  cerebral  reflex,  269, 

384,  285. 


GANGLIA,  sensory,  91,  109,  186 — 256; 
causes  of  disorder  of,  248 — 256;  in- 
nate defects  of.  248  ;  excessive  func- 
tion, 250 ;  the  supply  of  blood  to, 
251;  reflex  irritation  of,  252;  trophic 
influence  of  cerebral  hemispheres  on, 
355:  ttie  hemispherical,  159 — 339. 

General  paralysis,  the  motor  and  men- 
tal phenomena  .of,  494. 


Genius,    assimilation     by,     34 ;     the 

.  quality  of,  64 ;  the  imagination  of, 
5*7- 

(•••nil  ••••!!,  the,  119. 

Goethe,  i,  59,  Oi,  64,68,  in,  131,  132, 
293. 

Goliz,  on  inhibitory  function,  145,  173; 
on  the  removal  of  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres, 193. 

Graham,  on  colloidal  matter,  87. 

Gratiolet,  99. 

Gray,  ode  on  Eton  College,  386. 

Gregarinida,  the,  105. 

Griesinger,  on  psychical  reflex  action, 
181. 

H. 

HABIT,  420. 

Hall,  Robert,  on  materialism.  135. 
1 1  a  Her,  on  the  sense  of  smell  in  negroes, 

tij.  _ 
Hallucinations,  121,  236,  255,  291,  993, 

297,  300. 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.,  the  veracity  of  con- 
sciousness, 18  ;  on  latent  modifica- 
tions of  mind,  3%  73  ;  the  meaning 
of  consciousness,  45  ;  definition  of 
mind,  126,  133 ;  on  co-existence  of 
conscious  states,  304. 
Hartley,  on  secondary  automatic  move- 
ments, 150,  184;  on  reflex  cerebral 
function,  195  ;  on  the  nature  of  ideas, 
469 ;  on  complex  and  duplex  ideas, 
335  ;  on  different  languages,  342  ;  on 
the  will,  427,  460 ;  on  memory,  529. 
Hartmann,  K.  von,  on  unconscious 

mind,  84. 

Haschisch,  the  effects  of,  578. 
Heart,  retardation   of  action  of,  173  ; 
apparent  cessation  of  action  of,  341. 
Helmholtz,  on  the  nature  of  perception, 
(23,  227  ;    on  perception  of  colour, 
234. 

Hemiplegia,  118. 

Hemispheres,  the  cerebral,  93,  97,  259 ; 
insensibility  of,  98  ;  convolutions  of, 
101  ;  the  removal  of,  191 — 194,  207, 
261 ;  compensatory  action  of,  264. 
Herbart,  352. 
Heredity,  217,  330,  369. 
History,  the  study  of,  53. 
Hitzig,  Dr.  E.,  on  stimulation  of  the 

cerebral  convolutions,  265. 
Hobbes,   121,  277,  301,  309,  340,  341, 

347.  352,  4°6.  427.  4°»- 
Howe,  Dr.  S.  C,  a  case  of  acuteness 
of  smell,  257  :  on  the  case  of  Laura 
Bridgman,  480,  507 — 511. 
Huber.  on  the  intelligence  of  bees,  240. 
Humboldt,   15,  64 ;   on  the  sense  of 

smell  in  Indians,  315. 
Hume,  David,  on  association  of  ideas, 
323 ;  on  innate  idea,   340 ;  on  will, 
461. 

Hunter,  John,  on  paraplegia,  136;  on 
the  effects  of  attention,  291. 


544 


INDEX. 


Huxley,  T.  H.,  on  differences  between 
brains  of  ape  and  of  man,  103 ;  on 
the  Gregarinida,  105. 

Hydra,  the,  92. 

Hypnotism,  388,  472. 

Hypochondria,  377. 

Hypothesis,  the  use  of,  65. 


I. 


IDEA,  the  essential,  82  ;  the  cerebral 
correlate  of,  384 ;  the  action  of,  upon 
movement,  287  ;  the  action  of,  upon 
sensory  centres,  291  ;  the  action  of, 
upon  nutrition  and  secretion,  300 ; 
the  action  of,  upon  other  ideas,  303 ; 
different  state  of  evolution  of,  338. 

Ideas,  unconscious,  70,  71, 73,  74,  305 ; 
material,  85  ;  first  appearance  of, 
98  ;  the  nature  of,  269  ;  general  and 
abstract,  273,  522  ;  fundamental  or 
innate,  ajj — 286,  324—334  :  like 
movements,  306 ;  association  of, 
321  ;  complex,  335  ;  hostility  to 
new,  413  ;  power  of  will  over,  436. 

Ideation,  259,  272  ;  mechanism  of, 
280. 

Idiosyncrasies,  248. 

Idiots,  the  brains  of,  104;  sense  of 
smell  of,  215  ;  defective  sensibility 
of,  249  ;  remarkable  memories  of, 
5»8. 

Imagination,  523  ;  conditions  of  sound, 
529 ;  difference  between  fancy  and, 
529. 

Individuation,  the  principle  of,  88,  xio. 

Infants,  reflex  acts  of,  137  ;  anence- 
phalic,  137. 

Inhibition,  145,  163,  318,  442. 

lunervation,  motor,  313 — 315;  feeling 
of,  425. 

Insanity,  the  study  of,  52;  sensorial, 
248,  251 ;  moral,  367.  _ 

Insects,  the  powers  of  vision  of,  209. 

Instinctive  actions,  196,  aio. 

Instincts,  201,  202,  393 ;  origin  of, 
216  —  221 ;  evolution  of,  394. 

Intellectorium  commune,  is8,  259. 

Intuition,  xi,  59,  333;  motor,  267, 
463;  imaginative,  531. 


JACKSON,  Dr.  Hnghlings,  on  epilepsy, 

263. 
Jews,  the  national  and  moral  feeling 

of,  401. 

K. 

KANT,  on  unconscious  ideas,  74. 
Kuhne,  on  the  endings  of  nerves,  107. 
Knight,  on  instincts  in  animals,  219, 


L. 

LAMARCK,  on  the  relation  of  o'gnnism 

to  environment,  132,  133. 
Language,  analysis  of,    5  :   study  of, 

51  ;  the  seat  of,  263  ;  origin,  nature, 

and  development  of,  499—506. 
Lay  cock,  Dr.,  on  reflex  cerebral  func- 
tion, 181. 
Lecithin,  78,  8r. 
Leibnitz,  on  consciousness  of  free  will, 

46,  429;  on  unconscious  ideas,  74. 
Leroy,  on  the  cunning  of  foxes,  218. 
Leuret,  09. 

Levy,  W.  H.,  on  blindness,  214. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  on  neurility,  89 ;  on  the 

law  of  organic  development,  132. 
Life,  mind  the  highest  development  of, 

43-  5°- 
Lister,  Joseph,  on  the  contractions  of 

wtfriss,  108  ;  on  the  movements  of 

pigment  granules,  175. 
Locke,   the  psychological  method  of, 

47;   on    spiritual    beings,    105;   on 

innate  ideas,  440. 
Longet,  on  the  removal  of  the  cerebral 

hemispheres,  192. 
Love,  the  passion  of,  377. 
Lucas,  Dr.  Prosper,  215. 
Luys,  on  the  function  of  the  thalami 

optici,  187. 


M. 

MACAULAY,   remarkable   memory  of, 

518. 
Major,  Dr.   Herbert,  on  thfc  brain  of 

the  Chacma  baboon,  116. 
Mammalia,  cerebral  hemispheres   of, 

97- 

Marshall,  J.,  on  the  ape's  brain,  103  ; 
on  the  brain  of  an  idiot,  104. 

Materialism.  134,  135. 

Matter,  colloidal,  87  ;  powers  of,  127  ; 
grades  of,  130;  the  non-existence  of, 
223. 

Max  Muller,  on  the  analysis  of  lan- 
guage, 5  ;  on  the  impossibility  of 
thought  without  language,  480. 

Meissner,  on  scattered  nerve-cells, 
108. 

Memory,  the  basis  of,  271 ;  persis- 
tence of,  25 ;  nature  and  function  of, 
512 — 523;  unconscious,  514;  dis- 
orders of,  534  ;  of  old  age,  536. 

Mesmerism,  316. 

Mesnet,  Dr.  E.,  on  a  remarkable  case 
of  automatism,  342. 

Metaphysics,  barrenness  of,  13. 

Method,  the  metaphysical,  3,  4 ;  the 
inductive,  9 — H  ;  the  psychological, 
xi,  60  ;  the  un  on  of  subjective  and 
objective,  63  ;  discussion  of,  in 
study  of  mind,  i — 7<x 


INDEX. 


545 


Mill,  James,  on  sensory  movements, 
194  ;  on  the  term  Ideation,  359  :  on 
complex  ideas,  336  ;  on  the  acquire- 
ment of  voluntary  movements, 
435- 

Mill,  John  S.,  on  the  psychological 
method,  75  ;  on  the  co-existence  of 
states  of  consciousness,  304. 

Milton,  on  truth  in  the  making,  31  ; 
on  grades  of  matter,  131  ;  on  the 
mental  functions  of  matter,  134;  on 
the  harmony  of  the  spheres,  407  ; 
on  liberty,  438. 

M  imicry,  the  mental  effects  of,  473. 

Mimosa  pudica,  the,  140. 

Mind,  method  of  study  of,  1—76  ;  de- 
notation of  the  word,  39,  78—84  ; 
the  most  complex  vital  function,  43  ; 
plan  of  development  of,  50  ;  degene- 
ration of,  51 ;  true  method  of  study 
of,  54 ;  a  physiology  of,  77  ;  uncon- 
scious, 84 ;  genesis  of,  99 ;  defini- 
tions of,  125,  126,  133. 

Miracles,  299. 

Montaigne,  on  additional  senses,  340. 

Moral  sense,  396 ;  the  origin  and  de- 
velopment of,  396 — 405. 

Moreau,  on  haschisch,  378. 

Motor  hallucinations,  482. 

Motor  intuitions.  267,  463 — 510. 

Motorium  commune,  188,  463. 

Movements,  potential,  150  ;  secondary 
automatic,  150,  184,  194  ;  associated, 
152  ;  centre  of  co-ordination  of,  154 ; 
laws  of  reflex,  166  ;  sensori-molor, 
190,  194,  256  ;  sensory  stimuli  of, 
230 ;  voluntary,  246 ;  ideo-motor, 
287 — 991  ;  power  of  will  over,  434. 
496. 

M  tiller,  Job.,  on  the  stimuli  of  tlie 
special  senses,  122;  on  associated 
movements,  153!  on  the  volition  of 
sensory  centres,  238  ;  on  pleasure 
and  pain,  351. 

Muscular  sense,  the,  487 — 495. 


O. 

OBJECT,  the  perception  of,  295. 

Obseiyation,  introspective,  61  ;  ob- 
jective, 61,  62. 

Old  age,  failing  memory  of,  536. 

Oilier,  on  transplantation  of  peri- 
osteum, 447. 

Opium,  dreams  of,  73. 

Ovum,  the  human,  105,  119. 

Owen,  Professor,  on  the  Archen- 
cephala,  107. 

P. 

PAGET.Sir  James,  on  rhythmical  nutri- 
tion, 157. 


Pain,  the  foundation  of,  331 ;  the  im- 
perfect memory  of,  537. 

Paraplegia,  136. 

Pascal,  on  custom,  220. 

Pelletier,  Naicisse,  231. 

Perception,  98,  206,  221— ?*):  the 
foundation  of  icasoning,  283  ;  erron- 
eous, 529, 

Periosteum,  transplantation  of,  447. 

Pfliiger,  on  the  terminations  of  nerves, 
108  ;  on  reflex  actions,  138  ;  on  sen- 
sation in  spinal  cord,  138  ;  on  the 
laws  of  reflex  movements,  166,  182  ; 
on  reflex  convulsions,  176. 

Phantasy,  529. 

Philistinism,  403. 

Philippeau,  89. 

Philosophy,  Ionian  school  of,  3. 

Physiognomy,  study  of,  382. 

Physiology,  imperfection  of,  50. 

Plato,  s,  8,  is.  32,  64. 

Pleasure,  the  foundation  of,  351. 

Polypes,  sensibility  of,  93 ;  conscious- 
ness and  volition  of,  142,  241. 

Priestley,  Dr.  J.,  334. 

Prochaska,  on  sensibility  in  polypes, 
93,  241 ;  on  reflex  function,  139  ;  on 
the  conservative  law  of  reflex  action, 
185  ;  on  volition  of  polypes,  241. 

Protagon,  79. 

Protozoa,  86. 

Psychology,  empirical,  15 ;  need  of 
individual,  23  ;  the  terms  of,  43  ; 
true  method  of,  63. 

Puberty,  mental  effects  of,  371. 

Punishment,  the  idea  of,  400,  414 ; 
eternal,  415. 

Pyrrhonism,  4 

Pythagoras,  3. 


R. 


RATtOCINATIOM,  309. 

Recollection,  517  ;  difference  between 

memory  and,  519. 
Reflection,  308. 
Reflex    actions,    137 — 182  ;    cerebral, 

181,  195,  269  ;  sensory,  194. 
Reformer,  the  unwise  conduct  of,  453  ; 

the    intensive    and    the    extensive, 

4s5- 
Reid,  Dr.  J.,  his  definition  of  mind, 

125. 

Relations,  integration  of,  90. 
Religion,  401. 
Residua,  27  ;  Beneke  on,  70 ;  the  bafjj 

of  memory,  513. 
Responsibility,  419. 
Richter,  Jean  Paul,  33,  36 ;  on       ant- 
ing. 538- . 
Rigor  mortis,  171. 
Romberg,  on  co-ordinate  spasm,  485 

on  tabes  dorsalis,  488. 
Rosenthal,  89. 


546 


INDEX. 


SANORRSOV,  Dr  Rurdon,  on  cerebral 
motor  centres,  266. 

Savages,  limited  ideas  of,  374,  413 ; 
limited  moral  sense  of,  399  ;  cruelties 
of,  415  ;  imagination  of,  526. 

Scepticism,  327. 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  44. 

Schweinfurth,  Dr.,  on  Ceutral  African 
superstition,  2. 

Sciences,  continuity  of,  49. 

Secretion,  effects  of  emotion  upon,  ^85. 

Self-consciousness,  interrogation  ofj  16, 
245- 

Sensation,  seat  of  conimoo,  187 ;  re- 
lation of  consciousness  to,  197 — 205, 
242  ;  pure,  206,  221  ;  as  sign  or  sym- 
bol, 229,  272  ;  compound,  234. 

Senses,  development  of  special,  01  ; 
stimulation  of,  122  ;  acuteness  of, 
an,  257;  development  of  power  of, 
312 — 215  ;  tactile  aiid  muscular,  221; 
visual,  226,  235. 

Sensibility,  kinds  of,  94  ;  symmetrical 
increase  of,  235. 

Sensorium  commune,  188. 

Sentience,  organic,  206. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  on  judicious  lies, 
295. 

Shelley,  hallucinations  of,  293. 

Sight,  instantaneous  judgments  of,  32. 

Sleep,  cerebral  circulation  during,  320. 

Socrates,  5. 

Somnambulism,  208,  316. 

Sophistry,  5. 

Spaiding,  experiments  on  chickens,  201. 

Speech,  231  ;  mode  of  learning,  429, 
476;  the  possibility  .of  future  de- 
velopment of,  471;  the  loss  of  power 
°f>  475 ;  physiological  mechanism  of, 
476- 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  ideas,  70 ;  on 
organism  and  environment,  133  ;  on 
memory,  538. 

Sperm-cell,  the,  119. 

Spinal  cord,  education  of.  160,  163 ; 
grey,  substance  of,  164  ;  continuous 
activity  of,  162 ;  exhaustion  and 
repair  of,  157  ;  inhibitory  function 
of,  163  ;  functions  of,  137 — 182  ;  in- 
stability of,  167 ;  excessive  stimula- 
tion of,  169  ;  the  supply  of  blood  to, 
170;  reflex  irritation  of,  173. 

Spinoza,  on  final  causes,  148,  156,  183  ; 
on  automatic  actions,  182  ;  on  dream- 
images,  292;  his  mathematical  me- 
thod, 349 ;  on  pleasure  and  pain,  351; 
on  desire,  353  ;  on  the  passions,  394 
406  ;  on  free-will,  409,  430  ;  on  final 
causes,  432  ;  on  will  and  intelligence. 
443. 

Stewart,  PugalJ,  215. 

Stigmata,  302. 


Strychnia,  effects  of,  171,  175  ;  deriva- 
tives of,  171. 

Substantta  cogitans,  125,  133. 
Sympathies,  organic,  373. 


T. 


TABES  DORSALIS,  489. 

Tarchanoff,  on  inhibiting  the  heart's 
action,  173. 

Tension,  muscular,  feeling  of,  31*. 

Tertullian,  120. 

Tetanus,  177. 

Thalamus  opticus,  187. 

Thales,  3. 

Theolepsy,  303. 

Thompson,  Sir  W.,  the  molecular 
structure  of  water,  260. 

Thought,  secretion  of,  77. 

Thuraam,  Dr.  J.,  on  the  weight  of  the 
brain,  103. 

Tiger-moth,  the,  an. 

Todd,  Dr.,  on  the  seat  of  epilepsy,  263. 

Tonicity,  muscular,  162. 

Townshend,  Colonel,  remarkable  case 
of,  34I-,  . 

Transpeciation,  457. 

Trousseau,  on  epileptic  vertigo,  151, 
152- 

Truth,  absolute,  121,  323. 

Tuber  annulare,  187. 

Tucker,  A.,  238,  437,  445. 

Tyler,  E.  B.,  on  analogy  between 
colours  and  sounds,  93;  on  sounds  not 
used  in  speech,  471 ;  on  gesture- 
language,  481. 

U. 

UKCOVDITIINKD,  the,  to. 

Unconsciousness,  epileptic,  151,  eo8, 
347 

Unknowable,  the,  10. 

Unzer,  on  material  ideas,  85  ;  on  reflex 
functions,  139,  183 ;  on  acquired 
automatic  movements,  184  ;  on  sen- 
sory movements,  195  ;  on  pleasi.re 
and  pain,  351  ;  on  the  motor  expres- 
sions of  emotions,  379. 


V. 

VAN  r>F.R  KOI.K,  SCHROBDBR,  on  the 
structure  of  cerebral  convolutions, 
1 16;  on  morbid  changes  in  insanity. 
124,  262 ;  on  epileptic  unconscious- 
ness, 151 ;  on  the  centre  of  muscu- 
lar co-ordination,  154  ;  on  ganglionic 
nuclei,  189;  on  unconscious  shriek 
ing,  209. 

Variation,  the  law  of,  217. 

Vertigo,  epileptic,  151. 


INDEX. 


547 


Vision,  complex  nature  of,  935. 

Vitality,  the  theory  of,  131. 

Volkmann,  on  symmetrical  increase  of 
sensibility,  235 

Volition,  309,  339,  409 — 461 ;  self- 
determining,  412;  abstract.  432, 
442  ;  neivou*  centres  of,  441,  444. 

Von  Baer,  on  the  law  of  development, 
7,132. 

Vulpian,  on  properties  of  nerve-fibres, 
80  ;  on  nerve-centres,  153  ;  on  the 
seat  of  common  sensation,  187  ;  on 
the  removal  of  cerebral  hemispheres, 
192  ;  on  the  law  of  transmission  by 
nerves,  472. 

W. 

WALLACK,  A.  R.,  on  vision  in  insects, 
210  :  imitation  by  bees,  ants,  and 
birds,  240. 

West,  Gilbert,  stanza  of,  392. 


Whytt,  Dr.,  on  motor  hallucinations. 
483. 

Wieland,  on  imagination,  526. 

Wilks,  L)n,  ou  the  seat  of  epilepsy, 
263. 

Will,  the,  409—462 ;  free,  410—422  ; 
its  power  over  movements,  434  ;  its 
power  over  ideas,  436 ;  inhibitory 
function  of,  442  ;  relation  of  charac- 
ter to,  445  ;  relation  of  emotions  to, 
451 ;  represents  the  most  complete 
consensus  of  energies,  456  ;  is  the 
highest  force  in  nature,  456  ;  and 
creative,  457  ;  the  resolution  of, 
486. 

Wolff,  on  the  law  of  organic  develop- 
ment, 132. 

Wollaston,  Dr.,  letter  to,  72. 

Wundt,  on  functional  disposition,  72  ; 
on  the  functions  of  the  thalami 
optici  and  corpora  striata,  188  ;  on 
motor  innervation,  484. 


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He  takes  up  the  leading  modern  doctrines  which  are  based  upon  this  mechanical 
conception,  such  as  the  atomic  constitution  of  matter,  the  kinetic  theory  of  pases, 
the  conservation  of  energy,  the  neoular  hypothesis,  and  other  views,  to  find  how 
much  stands  upon  solid  empirical  ground,  and  how  much  rests  upon  metaphys- 
ical speculation.  Since  the  appearance  of  Dr.  Draper's  •  Religion  and  Science,' 
no  book  has  been  published  in  the  country  calculated  to  make  so  deep  an  im- 
pression on  thoughtful  and  educated  readers  as  this  volume.  .  .  .  The  range 
and  minuteness  of  the  author's  learning,  the  acnteness  of  his  reasoning,  and  the 
singular  precision  and  clearness  of  hi*  etyle,  are  qualities  which  very  seldom 
have  been  jointly  exhibited  in  a  scientific  treatise."—  New  Tort,  Sun. 

THE  FORMATION  OF  VEGETABLE  MOULD,  through 
the  Action  of  Worms,  with  Observations  on  their 
Habits.  By  CHARLES  DARWIN,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  author  of  "  On 
the  Origin  of  Species,"  etc.,  etc.  With  Illustrations.  12mo. 
Cloth,  $1.50. 

"Mr.  Darwin's  little  volume  on  the  habits  and  instincts  of  earth-worms  Is  no 
less  marked  than  the  earlier  or  more  elaborate  efforts  of  his  genius  by  freshness 
of  observation,  unfailing  power  of  interpreting  and  correlating  facts,  and  logical 
vigor  in  generalizing  upon  them.  The  main  purpose  of  the  work  Is  to  point  out 
the  share  which  worms  have  taken  in  the  formation  of  tbe  layer  of  vegetable 
mould  which  covers  the  whole  surface  of  the  land  in  every  moderately  humid 
country.  All  lovers  of  nature  will  unite  in  thanking  Mr.  Darwin  for  the  new  and 
interesting  light  he  has  thrown  upon  a  subject  so  long  overlooked,  yet  so  full  of 
Interest  and  instruction,  as  the  structure  and  the  labors  of  the  earth-worm.11— 
Saturday  Review. 

"  Respecting  worms  as  among  the  most  useful  portions  of  animate  natnre. 
Dr.  Darwin  relates,  in  this  remarkable  book,  their  structure  and  habits,  the 
part  they  have  played  in  the  burial  of  ancient  buildings  and  the  denudation  of 
the  l.'incf,  in  the  disintegration  of  rocks,  the  preparation  of  noil  for  the  growth 
of  plants,  and  in  the  natural  history  or  the  world.11 — lioston  Advertiser. 

New  York :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


D.  APPLETON  A  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS, 

\  NTS,  BEES,  V  M)  WASPS.  A  Record  of  Observations  on  the 
Habits  of  the  Social  Hyinenoptera.  By  Sir  JOHN  LCBUOCK,  Bart., 
11.  P.,  F.  R.  S.,  etc.,  author  of  u  Origin  of  Civilization,  and  the  Primi- 
tive Condition  of  Man,"  etc.,  etc.  With  Colored  Plates.  12mo. 
Cloth,  $2.00. 

"This  volume  contains  the  record  of  various  experiments  made  with  ants,  bees,  and 
wasps  during  the  last  ten  yean,  with  a  view  t  >  test  their  mental  condition  and  power* 
i.f  mmso.  The  principal  point  In  which  Sir  John's  mode  of  experiment  differs  from 
those  of  Hubvr,  Kon-L,  McCook,  and  others,  is  that  he  has  carefully  watched  and 
marked  particular  insects,  and  has  bad  their  ncsta  under  observation  for  tang  periods 
— one  of  his  ants'  nests  having  been  under  constant  Inspection  ever  since  Is74.  Ills 
observations  are  made  principally  upon  ants,  because  they  show  more  power  and  flexi- 
bility of  mind;  and  tho  value  of  1m  studies  is  thai  they  belong  to  the  department  of 
original  research.11 

"  We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  author  has  presented  us  with  the  most 
valuable  series  of  observations  on  a  special  subject  that  has  ever  been  produced,  charm- 
ingly written,  full  of  logical  deductions,  and,  when  we  consider  his  multitudinous  en- 
ir-i^'fiiiriit.*.  a  remarkable  illustration  of  economy  of  time.  As  a  contribution  to  insect 
psychology,  it  will  be  long  before  this  book  tiuds  a  parallel." — London  Athenaeum. 

DISEASES  OF  MEMORY.  An  Essay  in  the  Positive  Psychology. 
By  TII.  RIBOT,  author  of  "Heredity,"  etc.  Translated  from  the 
French  by  William  Huntington  Smith.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  M.  Ribot  reduces  diseases  of  memory  to  law,  and  his  treatise  is  of  extraordinary 
interest." — 1'hiladflplua  Prest. 

"'  Not  merely  to  scientific,  but  to  all  thinking  men,  this  volume  will  prove  intensely 
interesting.11 — New  York  Observer. 

"  M.  Ribot  has  bestowed  the  most  painstaking  attention  upon  his  theme,  and  nu- 
merous examples  of  the  conditions  considered  greatly  increase  the  value  and  interest 
of  the  volume.'' — Philadelphia  North  American. 

"To  the  general  reader  the  work  is  made  entertaining  hy  many  illustrations  eon- 
nected  with  such  names  as  Linmeus,  Newton.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Horace  V cruet,  Gus- 
tiive  Dore,  and  many  others."— Ilarrisburg  Telegraph. 

"The  whole  subject  is  presented  with  a  Frenchman's  vivacity  of  style." — Provi- 
dence Journal. 

"  It  is  not  too  much  to  sav  that  in  no  single  work  have  so  many  curious  cases  been 
brought  together  and  interpreted  in  a  scientific  manner.'' — Boston  Evening  'l<raveUer. 

MYTH  AND  SCIENCE.     By  TITO  VIQNOLI.     12mo.    Cloth,  $1.50. 

"His  book  is  Ingenious;  ...  his  theory  of  how  science  gradually  differentiated 
from  and  conquered  myth  is  extremely  well  wrought  out,  and  is  probably  iu  essentials 
correct.11— Saturday  ttetiew. 

"The  book  is  a  strong  one,  and  fir  more  interesting  to  the  general  reader  than  Its 
title  would  indicate.  The  learning,  the  acuteness,  the  strong  reasoning  power,  and  the 
scientific  spirit  of  the  author,  command  admiration." — New  York  Christian  Advocate. 

••An  attempt  made,  with  much  ability  and  nn  small  measure  of  success,  to  trace  the 
origin  and  development  of  the  myth.  The  author  has  pursued  his  inquiry  with  much 
patience  and  Ingenuity,  and  has  produced  a  very  readable  and  luminous  treatise." — 
Philadelphia  North  American. 

"It  Is  a  curious  If  not  startling  contribution  both  to  psychology  and  to  tho  early 
history  of  man's  development." — Sew  York  World. 

New  York:   D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street 


D.  APPLETON  &  OO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 


MAN  BEFORE  METALS.  By  N.  JOLT,  Professor  at  the  Science 
Faculty  of  Toulou.se;  Correspondent  of  the  Institute.  With  148  Il- 
lustrations. 12:no.  Cloth,  $1.75. 

"The  discussion  of  man1?  origin  and  early  history,  by  Professor  De  Quatrc- 
fages,  formed  one  of  the  most  useful  volumes  in  the  •  International  Scientific 
Series,'  and  the  same  collection  is  now  further  enriched  by  a  popular  treatise  on 
paleontology,  by  M.  N.  Joly,  Professor  in  the  University  of  Toulouse.  The  tith 
of  the  book,  •  Man  before  Metals,'  indicates  the  limitations  of  the  writer's  theme. 
His  object  is  to  bring  together  the  numerous  proofs,  collected  by  modern  research. 
of  the  great  age  of  the  human  race,  and  to  show  us  what  man  was,  in  respect  ol 
customs,  industries,  and  moral  or  religious  ideas,  before  the  use  of  metals  wait 
known  to  him." — New  York  Sun. 

••An  interesting,  not  to  say  fascinating  volume." — Xew  York  Churchman. 

ANIMAL  INTELLIGENCE.  By  GEORGE  J.  ROMANES,  F.  R,  S., 
Zoological  Secretary  of  the  Linnaean  Society,  etc.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.75. 

"My  object  in  the  work  as  a  whole  IB  twofold  :  Fin=t,  I  have  thonght  it  de- 
sirable that  there  should  be  something  resembling  a  text-book  of  the  facts  of  Com" 
paraiive  Psychology,  to  whicb  men  of  science,  and  also  metaphysicians,  may  turn 
whenever  they  have  occasion  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  particular  level  of 
intelligence  to  which  this  or  that  species  of  animal  attains.  My  second  and  much 
more  important  object  is  that  of  considering  the  facts  of  animal  intelligence  in 
their  relation  to  the  theory  of  descent." — from  the  Preface, 

"Unless  we  are  greatly  mistaken,  Mr.  Romanes's  work  will  take  its  place  as 
one  of  the  most  attractive  volumes  of  the  '  International  Scientific  Series.  Snmn 
persons  may,  indeed,  be  disposed  to  gay  that  it  is  too  attractive,  that  it  feeds  tho 
popular  taste  for  the  curious  and  marvelous  without  supplying  any  commensurate 
discipline  in  exact  scientific  reflection  ;  but  the  author  has,  we  think,  fully  justi- 
fied himself  in  hi-  modest  preface.  The  result  is  the  appearance  of  a  collection 
of  facts  which  will  be  a  real  boon  to  the  student  of  Comparative  Psychology,  for 
this  is  the  ti  r.- 1  attempt  to  present  systematically  well-assured  observations  on  the 
mental  life  of  animals."— Saturday  Review. 

"The  author  believes  himself,  not  without  ample  cause,  to  hare  completely 
bridged  the  supposed  gap  between  instinct  and  reason  by  the  authentic  proofs 
here  marshaled  of  remarkable  intelligence  in  some  of  the  higher  animals.  It  ia 
the  seemingly  conclusive  evidence  of  reasoning  powers  furnished  by  the  adapta- 
tion of  moans  to  ends  in  case*  which  can  not  be  explained  on  the  theory  of  in- 
herited aptitude  or  habit."—  New  York  Sun. 

THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS.  By  SHELDON  AMOS,  M.  A.,  anthor 
of  "The  Science  of  Law,"  etc.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.75, 

"To  the  political  student  and  tho  practical  statesman  it  ought  to  be  of  great 
value." — New  York  Herald. 

"The  author  traces  the  subject  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  in  Greece,  and  Cicero 
In  Rome,  to  the  modern  schools  in  the  English  field,  not  flighting  the  teachings 
of  the  American  Revolution  or  the  lessons  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1793. 
Form*  of  government,  political  terms,  the  relation  of  law,  written  and  unwritten, 
to  the  subject,  a  codification  from  Justinian  to  Napoleon  in  France  and  Field  in 
America,  are  treated  as  parts  of  the  subject  in  hand.  Necessarily  the  subjects  ol 
executive  and  legislative  authority,  police,  liquor,  and  land  laws  are  considered, 
and  the  question  ever  growing  in  importance  in  all  countries,  the  relations  ol  cor 
poratious  to  the  state."— New  York  Observer. 


New  York:  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street 


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